Leaping Out of the Bath (Shouting 'Next! ')
by gypsy rosalie
Summary: Martina has never expected much out of life. She's never had reason to.
1. Part One: 1965-1972

**Yes, this ties in with At the End of the Day headcanon, though it could stand alone. There are a couple of references to it, and a fair few to the show. I had about 70% of this planned by the time I wrote the Post Office Savings chapter of ATEOTD. It pretty much all created itself in my head after watching a scene from one of the later series of the show, and I shall put a transcript of that scene before I start the fic. Martina didn't actually reveal much, but yeah, this entire beast of backstory sprung up from about six lines of dialogue, which shows how wired my brain is :P The title also originated there.**

**Parts of this may be a little OOC in places, but I'm starting from when Martina was six, and she hasn't quite become the hard-faced, no-nonsense DHSS lady everyone knows, loves and I daresay fears in the show yet XD She's going to have to grow and develop into her, and it's not going to be a nice journey. I'm aiming to explain why Martina is how she is in the show (and ATEOTD), why she's so untrusting and why her outlook on life is so bleak, but why despite all that she does some unexpected things like let Shifty in time and time again. She'll work her way there, and her life will eventually end up like the quote, though it's not there yet.**

_**Warnings:**_** (and there are a lot)- some language (mild), inadvertent child abuse, neglect, gambling, underage drinking, hints at dysthymia, poisoning, stomach-pumping and some quite bad self-esteem issues. I'm a little bit concerned, to be honest that this should have an M-rating, but I'm not entirely sure so I'll leave it as T for the time being. Please tell me if I should rethink this. **

**Anyway, enjoy. If that's possible. Note to self: stop writing novel-length author's notes.**

**Forgive any inadvertent anachronisms. I researched everything as best I could but some things may have slipped me by...**

* * *

_'You're a very mechanical person, aren't you? I'll bet your family sit in the kitchen waiting for their number to come up. I bet they queue up outside the bathroom waiting for you to leap out of the bath shouting 'next!'_

_'I don't live with my family, Mister Boswell. I live alone.'_

_'Oh.' _

_'My mam lives in a council flat eleven floors up. She has a very close relationship with British airways. She shares it with me dad, and she goes out to work to pay his gambling debts and me brother's whiskey bill.'_

_'Oh. That's really sad, that is!'_

_'We don't have one car between us.'_

_-Conversation between Martina and Billy Boswell._

**Leaping Out of the Bath (Shouting 'Next!')**

_Billy didn't know what he was talking about. Martina revealed very little._

**Part One**

**1965-1972**

The phrase Martina hears most during her childhood is _get out of the way._

_Get out of the way._

No matter what she does, what she says, where she goes, she's always under someone's feet. It doesn't matter whether she's trying to please, deliberately trying to infuriate or just trying desperately to get some _attention_ for once, because, no matter which one of these is her motive on a given day, she's just being a nuisance in the eyes of her parents.

She did quite well at school. _Get out of the way._ She got into trouble off the teacher. _Get out of the way, Martina, I'm busy. I don't have time for this. _She needs a new pair of school shoes, because she's scuffed the ones she's got to oblivion. _Not now, Martina, I've got enough on my mind and I can't afford to keep- oh, will you get out of the way, for goodness' sake?!_ There's not really any point in telling them anything- they're never interested. They have far more important things to be thinking of than their daughter, and as such they have little to do with her, other than to tell her not to do this or not to do that.

Martina, when she's old enough to realise that this isn't normal, that other children her age receive, on the whole, a lot more love and attention than the rare snatches she's getting, begins to wonder just what it is that she's done wrong. It doesn't make sense- is it something she _has_ done, or something she _hasn't_? She tries doing things, she tries not doing things, testing which one will get more of a reaction, but the outcome is always the same.

_Get out of the way._

And then, one day, it becomes blindingly clear why she always seems to be a roadblock in her parents' path.

Martina's six at the time, is tying her shoes on her own, is reading Enid Blyton, is struggling with arithmetic at school and saving what little pocket money she gets for something she'll know she wants when she sees it. Is as much of a normal child as anyone else, and as such, has as much of an inquisitive mind as any other six-year-old. And so, when she hears raised voices in the parlour, it's a natural move to stop what she's doing and go and have a stickybeak.

'Two thousand pounds! _Two thousand bloody pounds!_ D'you honestly think we can afford that? _You_ tell me how we're gonna settle a debt this size, Geoff- go on!'

Her mother's having hysterics, which is in no way normal. She's always quiet, preferring to attack by delivering well-timed, stinging comments, by staring with disapproval, but never by shouting.

'Oh, you think I _asked_ for this to happen, did yer?' her Dad shouts back.

'I _told_ you- didn't I tell you nothing good ever come o' gambling? I warned you dozens o' times not to waste our money on that…that _sin_- and still, you went ahead and did it! Well I'm telling you now, I am _not_ going to waste my savings helping you out!'

'So you'd be happy to see your own husband go to prison?'

Martina presses herself up against the door, heart hammering as she listens. What does he mean, prison? What'll happen to her if her dad goes to gaol? What's gambling? She makes a note to ask her brother later.

'I don't know sometimes. Don't you think it's hard enough? We've got enough to pay out what with Roger's whiskey bills…'

'Well, if the lazy bastard got a job he could pay his _own_ whiskey bills…'

'And who'd hire a chronic alcoholic? _And_ there's Martina- _she's_ still got to be fed for another ten years at least- Lord knows I needed another child to have to provide for…'

Martina starts at the sound of her name. Her ear's squashed as closely against the door as is humanly possible, but she tries to move a little closer all the same.

'You'll never forgive me for that, will you? You know I didn't intend for that to happen!'

'Well, you should have been more careful, shouldn't you? We could have avoided that accident!'

'We can't do anything about that now, can we? She's here now- we might as well try and make something useful out of her…'

'Fat lot of good that'll do. She's just about the stubbornest little thing I've ever met in my life.'

'Hah! And you wonder where she gets that from?'

The row goes on, more is said, but Martina's not listening anymore. The world has stopped turning.

Accident. An accident they could have avoided. That's what she is. Her parents have as good as owned up to the fact that they didn't want her, that they're not happy about her being here, that, maybe, they wish she'd never been born.

No _wonder_ she's always in the way. She's unwanted, that's what she is.

Martina feels a pain in her chest, a singing, searing, burning pain, like someone's tossed a hot coal down her oesophagus and it's settled right over the top of her heart. She wants to cry, but she doesn't do it here. If she's too loud about it, her Mam and Dad will know she's been listening- and she could do without that added humiliation on top of all she's just found out.

She runs upstairs to her room and does it there instead, letting her pillow listen to the symphony of her woes and take the occasional bouts of abuse she decides to give it in an attempt to soothe her own pain.

She's discovered something today.

Not being wanted hurts.

It hurts a _lot._

* * *

Roger finds her there an hour later, too tired to still be properly crying, just silently snivelling, lying on her stomach with her face in her pillow.

'What's all this then, pet?' He comes to sit down on the side of the bed, puts a hand on her back, and the warmth of his calloused palm spreads down her ribs, a comforting ointment for her burning pain.

Roger's always cared. _He_ never makes her feel obsolete, unwanted, a mistake. He alone gives her the feeling that she's loved.

It's odd, this, given all Roger's problems, given the fact that Martina was born during the height of his struggles.

Roger was seventeen when Martina was born. She's not sure how old he is now, twenty-something, probably. She could work it out if she really tried, but arithmetic is a thorn in her side, and Martina hates it, so she doesn't bother. He's a grown-up and she's not, and that's enough to get by on for now.

Even before she'd come into the world, Roger had had problems with drink- she doesn't know what this means, exactly, but she's pieced enough together to know he can't stay away from whiskey, can barely function unless he has some, and will resort to any means he can to get it. He's been to gaol twice, just overnight both times, for rowdy behaviour in public, but even this made their parents furious beyond compare, and he's run up huge bills the likes of which require heirlooms to be sold to pay off.

And it was just when he'd landed himself in the largest of these debts- underage, too, more's the pity- that Martina's mother had found out she was pregnant.

Needless to say the prospect of another mouth to feed, another person to be looking after when Roger needed serious help, had not come as a pleasant surprise.

But oddly enough, while it becomes increasingly clear Martina's parents resent her messing up their already chaotic life, her brother never has. Indeed, Roger seems to see her as a blessing, something good coming to brighten a dark time in his life, and all the affection he can give he bestows on her gladly. He calls her 'pet', and the name is true in every sense- she's his little pet, and he adores her.

And she him. She reciprocates with every bone in her little body- how can she not? Roger's inescapably lovable, for all his problems.

And so when her brother comes into her room and asks what's wrong, she immediately climbs into his arms, lets herself be enveloped by them and the smell of stale Scotch that clings to him, and tells him everything. She chokes as she gets it all out- what she heard, what she now realises, the feeling eating away at her that she shouldn't be here, and that maybe now she wishes she never _had _been born, then everyone would've been better off.

'Don't talk like that, pet!' Roger scolds gently, cradling her closer. 'You were a _good _accident. A _lucky _accident.'

'That's not what Mam and Dad said,' she says flatly.

'Take no notice of them. They're a pair of old twats. They don't mean it.'

He tickles her lightly and Martina giggles in spite of herself. Roger reaches out with his thumb, brushing a tear from her eye.

'Gone red in the face, you 'ave, from all this cryin'. Don't listen to them, Martina. You were the best little accident that ever happened to me, you know. You are…' he pauses, and when he starts up again he's come over all poetic, 'a little ray of hope in my bleak life.'

'What's that mean?'

'It means that 'avin' a good little thing like you around makes me feel there's hope for me- to become less of a bad person, I mean.'

He wipes another stray tear away, takes both hands and brushes all her hair back from her face, smiling down at her. 'So don't think about it. I will _always_ want you.'

Martina smiles back, the pain in her heart dulling a little, but still there. It won't go away- she doesn't think it can- but Roger can ease it.

Something occurs to her, though, and she frowns.

'But Rog,' she says, 'you're not a bad person.'

Her brother's laugh befuddles her. It sounds as if he doesn't believe what she's just told him, though she's certain of it herself. Someone who loves her so much can't possibly be a bad person. She doesn't realise, not now. She's far too young, far too wrapped up in the sense of peace and comfort to understand why Roger could possibly think of himself this way.

When she looks back on this evening in years to come, she'll realise just how true his words are. But she's young, so young, and he's giving her the attention she so desperately craves, and right now she just can't understand it.

She gives him a strange, quirky smile, fiddling with a stray lock of red hair that's hanging over his eyes. 'Rog?' she asks, twisting it into a knot, 'what's gambling?'

Roger studies her and then laughs again, but it's warmer this time, lacking the strange ironic edge of his chuckle over the 'bad person' comment.

'Heard that one from Dad, did you?'

Martina nods, tapping her foot against the bed post impatiently. 'Well, what is it?'

'It's basically,' Rog says slowly, tapping one foot, 'it's basically gettin' rid of all your money as fast as you can.'

She frowns. 'What for?'

A twinge of humour glints in Roger's eyes, and for a good half an hour or so Martina finds herself learning every last detail about gambling- about the different varieties of card games and table games and the appeal of each, and about making wagers in general, and a last-minute quick sentence on the fact that it apparently causes trouble, as if Roger feels obliged to tack something responsible onto the end of his lecture.

She comes out of the conversation with a good deal of new, strange knowledge and a furrowed brow, but a considerably brighter mood. Being unwanted still hurts, but it's vastly overshadowed by the feeling being with Roger gives her. She doesn't _need_ her parents to pay attention to her. Rog will tell her anything she wants to know.

* * *

She's in enough of a good mood that when she comes downstairs at dinnertime, she gives her Dad a wry smile, asks if he prefers roulette or poker and which he's lost more money on, and gets sent straight back up to her room again without her supper.

She and Roger cackle about it for half an hour, Rog runs out and buys chips and they spend a very productive evening scoffing them and talking about her Dad's reaction, gambling and other inappropriate subjects.

Martina feels a little bit wicked, but it's a feeling she relishes. If her Mam and Dad don't want her, then she doesn't want them, either. She'll do quite well by doing the opposite of what they want.

It's a plan she sticks with for a long time, and will, in the distant future, end up regretting.

* * *

And so life goes on.

Martina goes to school in the daytime and comes home at night, just as anyone else would. She runs and plays and skips, sings occasionally, because all the other girls in her class do, though she hates the sound of her own voice compared to theirs. She reads whatever she can get her hands on, but arithmetic remains a thorn in her side, as does anything even vaguely mathematical, and she always uses her fingers to assist her when counting or adding. On most days, she'll say her best friend is Monica, who sits next to her and shares the sweets she keeps in her desk with her, on others she'll proclaim to the world that Monica is a cow and it's Caroline instead. Her favourite colour is pink, though she hates light purple with a vengeance, her favourite animal is a cat, and her favourite person in the whole wide world is her brother Roger, and she doesn't understand why people look at her so strangely when she tells them about him. She's as much a normal nearly-seven-year-old as anyone else in so many ways.

And yet in so many ways she isn't. She's set apart from the other children in her class- and not for the right reasons. She knows things they don't- she can't add to save her life but can seamlessly explain the difference between draw and stud poker and name five different brands of Scotch whiskey (her brother's favourites). She doesn't initiate friendships- she waits for people to come to her, and even then she'll take a while to decide whether or not she likes them. New people, she thinks, are bound to dislike her, and so she prefers not to risk it, chooses to isolate herself and let only a select few into her company and confidence. And, in turn, this reservedness unnerves many of the other children, leads them not to _want_ to approach her, and so they don't, and thus her belief that she's unlikeable increases and she closes herself off even more. It's a vicious circle, one she doesn't seem to be able to break out of. People _don't _want her, hence people _won't_ want her, hence she _doesn't let_ _them_ want her, hence they _don't_.

Not that she fully realises all this. It just tumbles along and over itself, and she goes along with it, sinking further into the quicksand of low self-esteem, barely noticing. There's enough misery in her life at home that she doesn't really notice a bit more of it at school, already it's becoming part of her, shaping who she is.

But all she has to do is let herself be folded in Roger's arms and she can forget all that. It doesn't matter how dull, how bleak, how self-destructive her life tends to be. It doesn't matter, so long as she has Roger.

* * *

At home, things remain constant. Money is tight, her parents are impatient, Martina gets in the way one too many times and gets told to go upstairs.

Go upstairs. That's the only thing her parents can be bothered to do with her, perhaps the only thing they can _think of_ to do with her. Caroline's always telling Martina about all sorts of dreadful punishments she's been on the receiving end of, that she's so lucky they never happen to her, but Martina wonders about that, to be honest. Being told to go upstairs is tantamount to being told to get out of the way- she can't see any difference at all. And it's not as if she _wants_ anything particularly dreadful to happen to her, it's just she's getting bored of hearing the same thing, of being pushed aside rather than paid attention to or dealt with. Some variety might be nice, occasionally.

She sits on the landing, bored out of her mind. Roger frequents the pub more and more these days, and so until he gets home, she has to make her own entertainment. She goes into her bedroom, finishes her homework, giving up on arithmetic and deciding she'll take the consequences tomorrow for not having done it, and staring for twenty minutes at a blank page at the top of which is written 'when I grow up' in her shaky handwriting. She's supposed to have finished this essay by tomorrow, but in all honesty, Martina doesn't know where to start. Her friends all have dreams, glittering aspirations of the sort all children have. They want to do great things, be significant, be famous, even if that might seem completely impossible. Martina has listened to each one, and then blurted a 'that's not gonna happen.' She's not particularly popular at the moment among her classmates for this, but that doesn't bother her.

She doesn't know anyone who's become a singer or an actress or some kind of rich royal. The people around her are holding down jobs that barely pay the rent. The people she knows are gambling or drinking to escape their troubles, and though her family are managing to stay above water, what with both her parents working, they'll never make enough to live really, _really_ comfortably. Martina isn't sure exactly what she's expecting in her future, but it's not going to be the stuff of fairytales. And no-one's ever told her otherwise.

She's only seven, and already she's cynical beyond her years.

She stares at the paper for twenty minutes more, then picks up her pencil and writes a slow, careful sentence.

_I don't know what I want to do._

* * *

'Heatin' bill's nearly _doubled_ since last time,' Martina's dad grumbles, slapping a sheet of paper down on the table.

Martina slowly raises her head from her plate, chewing on a piece of carrot and wondering whether this is worth listening to or not.

Her mother rolls her eyes. 'Not at the dinner table, Geoffrey.'

'Why not? Don't know how many more bloody dinners we'll be able to afford, if things keep goin' like this. We'll all starve soon enough. Nearly _doubled_, it 'as!'

Martina drops her fork to her plate. What does he mean, they won't be able to afford to eat anymore? What does he mean, they'll all starve soon enough?

'I _heard_ you, dear,' her Mam says in a bored tone. 'You've already played that one. And Martina, get that expression off yer face. He's overreactin', he is. We're not gonna starve.'

Martina wasn't aware she was wearing any sort of odd facial expression, let alone how to wipe whichever one she supposedly has off, so she settles for blinking a few times and returning to her dinner with ferocity. She keeps her eyes off her parents, sensing that if she continues to stare she'll probably be banished upstairs, but she keeps her ears open.

'Although if he's _really_ that concerned about starvin', he'll stop throwin' away 'is money as soon as 'e earns it,' her Mam mutters, a remark clearly not intended for her ears but aimed at her father's.

'Oh, we're back ter _that_ again, are we?' her Dad fairly shouts, slamming his cutlery down. 'How many times do I 'ave ter tell you, I'm not throwin' it all away! I made a couple o' bad investments-'

'Oh, yeah, makin' ridiculous wagers with people you _know_ always beat you- that's an 'investment' if ever I 'eard o' one…'

'Well, it _wouldn't_ matter if I made the odd bet with the odd mate if we brought more money into this 'ouse…and if the bills didn't keep goin' up.'

'Dare to dream, Geoff.'

'It's about time Roger got 'imself a bloody job- we wouldn't be strugglin' if we didn't 'ave to supply 'im with drink… '

Martina raises her eyes again, pursing her lips. Her fear has been replaced with anger- her Dad always seems to do this. He blames Roger whenever times get tough, and she can't stand to hear it. She's debating saying something when the front door bangs open on his hinges.

'Any dinner left?' a voice echoes through the house. Talk of the devil.

Roger catches Martina's eye as he wanders into the kitchen, and she does her utmost to warn him they've got it in for him, gesturing with her hands and hastily shoving them under the table when her mother's head turns in her direction.

'I won't bother to ask where you've been,' her Dad snaps. He's worked himself up into a temper now. 'Been drinkin' away the family's money as usual, 'ave you?'

Roger makes a face in Martina's direction. She pokes her tongue out at him in sympathy.

'Don't you look at 'er- ' her father growls at Roger, 'and Martina, I can _see_ you over there!' He puts his face in his hands. 'Gonna ruin me, the pair o' you.'

Roger clenches his fists. 'What are you gettin' at _'er_ for?'

'You, her- her, you- you're thick as thieves, you two. She's livin' off your influence, you know- maybe if you got a job, stopped _drainin_' all our money, made somethin' _useful_ of yerself there might be hope for 'er!'

Martina can't believe what she's hearing. Roger looks stung, as if he's been whacked in the face with a wooden plank.

She's not having this.

'What are you gettin' at '_im_ for?' she shouts, aware she's copying Roger's expression. 'Just because you can't pay the heat and throw your money away on bad wager-investments, you don't 'ave ter start bein' nasty ter _my brother_, and-'

'Martina, _be quiet_!' her Dad thunders. 'And shut your gob about things you don't understand.'

'I _understand_ well enough, thank-' Martina begins, but some rather terrifying stares come her way and she does indeed shut her gob.

'You see what you've created? Where'd you think she gets this disrespect from?' Her father's turned on Roger again. 'If you weren't such a bad influence, fillin' 'er 'ead with all sorts o' rubbish and teachin' her to talk back to 'er parents, turnin' 'er into a right little terror…'

She knows she'll be in trouble, but she just can't have this. 'Roger's _not _a bad influence!'

'I told you to _shut yer gob_!'

'No! Not until you-'

'Just leave it, pet,' Roger says.

Her mouth falls open. She raises a finger, but Roger just stares at her sadly, and she meekly desists.

Her parents give Roger meaningful looks, and he nods slowly. 'I see. She takes notice o' me.'

'She _does_, _yeah_,' her mam says. 'Think on that.'

'I'll 'ave another look for a job in the morning,' Roger says, sitting down, his voice flat and quiet. 'I'm sorry. I'll be a better influence on 'er from now on.'

Martina grimaces into her dinner, hating the remorse in his voice. He shouldn't have to be sorry, she thinks. It's their fault, not his.

* * *

'Whatcha readin'?' Martina asks, coming to sit beside Roger and snatching the magazine from his hands. He blanches, trying to grab it back.

'I don't think Mam and Dad would like it if they saw me showin' you that…'

Martina studies the picture for about three seconds and frowns. 'Why isn't this woman dressed?' she demands.

Roger wrings his hands, bites his lip. 'She's…er, she's not supposed to be.'

Martina scowls. 'Why?'

'That's her appeal, you see,' Roger says. 'Blokes generally like to look at that sort of thing.'

'Oh,' says Martina, tossing the magazine back to him. She's lost interest in it fairly quickly. 'That's a bit stupid, if you ask me.'

She doesn't understand why, but Roger is intensely amused by this remark.

'Yeah,' he says, wiping his eyes to rid them of the tears of laughter, 'I suppose it is.'

Martina shakes her head and doesn't understand what's gotten into him.

'Is this one o' those 'bad influence' things?'

Roger laughs again, and Martina narrows her eyes, getting just a tiny bit annoyed that he's not taking any of this seriously.

'_What_?' she demands. '_Honestly_, Rog, what?'

Roger just goes on chuckling, opening his arms to her. 'One o' those 'bad influence things,' he mimics, hugging her close and kissing the top of her head. 'Yeah, pet. Suppose it is.' He pauses, reconsiders. 'It definitely is.'

He shifts her in his lap, turning her around to face him and looking very seriously into her eyes, 'Martina, what you 'ave ter realise, sweetheart, is that…well,' he wrings his hands, 'you do know, don't you, that I 'ave problems- a lot o' problems, but especially problems with drink?'

She scoffs. 'Yeah.'

Martina holds his gaze. She's seen this with her parents- when her Mam and her Dad are having one of their not-so-rare arguments, her mother tends to stare very sternly at her husband until he backs down. It's quite a useful technique, she thinks, and she's tried it out on a couple of her friends at school when they've insisted on playing some game or other that she despises. And right now, the most wonderful thing in the world would be to hear Roger take it back and tell her that no, he's not really a 'bad influence'. She _knows_ there's something not quite right about him, sometimes, that he's had problems in his life. She's heard that from her parents, she's heard that from Rog himself, she's overheard it being said by various family members and friends of the family. But what harm does that really do? Roger has never hurt anyone, has he? He's certainly never hurt _her_, anyway. He's always been there, talked to her, answered her questions. He cares, and like he said, he'll always want her.

So she doesn't want to hear any more.

Roger just takes her face in his hands. 'Don't do that, 'Tina. Makes you look like a right frosty-faced old woman. Now listen to me, okay?'

She sighs dramatically, taps her foot but sits back in his arms, reluctantly conceding to hear what he has to say.

'Well…it's just that…when you've got a problem with drink, it means…it means often you can't stop 'avin' it, and it makes you worse…and the worse you get, the more you want it, even when it's makin' you, er…_worse_…'

'I do _know_ that,' Martina says. 'I do know _some_ things, you know.' Her mam and dad may not talk to her a lot, but they have taught her the bare bones of a few things by this stage, and warning Martina not to go down the same path as Roger has been a frequent occurrence of late. Probably because they want to make her useful, or something along those lines, but Martina won't say that, because she doesn't want them to know she was listening that day.

'Well, it's just that someone like me…there's a school o' thought that says people like me shouldn't be havin' dealin's with children. They think you might- well, copy me, and then you'll get hurt.'

Martina hums and ponders this. He does bad things occasionally. He's never done anything bad to _her_. And anyway, she _likes_ Roger. She _loves _Roger. That 'school of thought', whatever that is, probably stuffy professors or something, she thinks, because she doesn't understand the expression, can go away and never come back. She doesn't care.

'You're not all _that_ bad,' she says.

He makes a face.

'Rog, make me a promise,' she says, building up the stern glare once again.

'Look, 'Tina…'

'Rog_-er…'_

He looks at her in disbelieving mirth. 'Go on then, _mother_. What d'you want me to promise?'

'That even if you're a bad lot- and you're _not_,' she says, pouting at him to stop him protesting, 'you still won't leave me.'

'Oh, Martina,' Roger hugs her tighter. 'I_ already_ promised you that, pet! I'll always want you, I told you that, didn't I? You are a little ray…'

'Of hope in yer bleak life, I know.' She shakes her head and hears Roger chuckle once again. 'What?'

'Oh, don't worry, pet. It's just the way you talk sometimes- you just sound like the ladies down the dole, that's all.'

Martina picks up on the new word immediately. 'What's the dole?' she asks, and settles down against him to hear another of his fascinating explanations.

* * *

It's cold and windy outside in the playground, and Martina's not running around like the others, preferring to try and get warm by sitting in a huddle against the wall of the building, coat and scarf wrapped as tightly as they'll go, head bent over her knees in a feeble attempt to protect her face from the whipping wind.

Monica comes up beside her, and Martina budges over so she can sit down.

'Aren't you joining in?'

'No,' Martina says, staring straight ahead.

Monica puts her hands on her hips. 'Why not?'

'Don't feel like it.'

'You _never_ feel like it.'

She does have a point. Martina feels less and less inclined these days to join in anyone else's games. They all seem stupid and pathetic to her, full of all those dreams she doesn't have, and it bores her to have to pretend to be a princess or twirl a skipping-rope again and again. She'd rather not.

'You're so _boring_ these days,' Monica says.

'Well, why don't you go and talk to someone who's _not borin'_?' Martina snaps. She's fed up with being criticised- nearly everyone in her class has had a go at her for something along the same lines lately, not to mention the usual comments she's been getting at home, and all this, in addition to being admonished for receiving some very bad exam results this term, has put her in a foul mood. She certainly doesn't need this from her best friend, too.

'Well, why don't _you_ liven up?' Monica retorts.

Martina growls. 'Go _away._' She elbows her friend sharply, shuffling away toward the far corner of the wall and her own little cave of solitude. She just wants to be alone- she's sick of being pestered.

'You're a cow,' says Monica. 'I don't like you- I don't want to be your friend anymore.'

'All right by me,' Martina says, hunching closer around her knees and glaring at her from behind her arms. 'I don't like you either. You're a _stupid_ cow- and you're _annoyin'._'

Monica just turns and stomps away, and Martina watches her go.

'And _you're_ the one that's borin'!' she shouts after her. And good riddance, too.

But after a few more minutes of sitting on her own in the cold, Martina feels a small sadness descend on her.

They've had rows before, about anything and everything, and they've called each other all sorts of terrible names (well, terrible by a seven-year-old's standard, perhaps not in the eyes of the rest of the world), and Martina's rarely distressed by an insult or two, but something she said this time sticks with her and gnaws its way into her inside.

_I don't like you_. People don't normally say that to her, but they make the words quite plain in other ways, and all she can think is _not another one_. Well, if people don't like her, she's not going to like them. She folds her arms tighter and sulks, letting the sadness morph into anger.

It's silly and trivial- cut from the same cloth as the hundreds of fights between children that occur every day, sometimes several times a day, over the most petty of issues, but while the tendency is for these sorts of things to be patched up quite quickly, Martina holds onto her resentment. She's not going to forgive her friend for this.

She resolutely avoids looking at her, going so far as to attempt to angle her desk away, and being dressed down by her teacher for being 'so ridiculous.'

The days wear on, and she keeps to herself, occasionally turning to one of her few other friends, but mostly ignoring everyone around her.

Maybe this is just the way the world works. Maybe she's just not the sort of person people like.

But Roger likes her. Roger adores her.

Either he's wrong, or she's just trying to please the wrong people. She hasn't decided which yet.

She never really does, entirely.

* * *

Her parents are in the kitchen, rowing about something or other- no surprise there. Martina's lying on her stomach in front of the fire, staring at a large page of sums, willing them to go away with her glare, trying to put off having to attempt them for as long as possible. She squints at the first one, trying to remember what she's supposed to do, humming two choruses of a random song off the radio to try and procrastinate a bit further, and then she sighs, picks up her pencil and presses it so hard to the page that the lead immediately snaps.

The phone rings, and she fairly leaps up from the floor to get it. _Saved_.

'Hello?'

''Tina, is that you?'

'Rog?'

'Yeah, it's me, pet- listen, I need…'

'Are you at the pub?' Martina interjects. She doesn't know why he's phoned home- normally he doesn't bother, but if it can get her out of doing that ghastly homework for a while longer she won't question it, just take this golden opportunity and chat to him for as long as possible.

'No, I'm not- sweetheart, I need you to put Mam or Dad on for me.'

_Oh._ Martina's face falls. 'Why?'

' 'Tina, please just-'

'You could tell _me_ and I could tell them later,' she says hopefully.

'Look, Martina, this is serious, _please_, just get Mam or Dad.' His voice is odd, and, confused and a little bit miffed, she puts the receiver to one side and psyches herself up to walk into the kitchen and into the battlefield.

The row has died down by now, but the atmosphere is incredibly unpleasant. Her mother's over by the stove, stirring something with a vengeance, her wooden spoon clicking against the side of the pan in a ferocious rhythm, and her Dad is just sitting there, shrouded in a silence and stillness that Martina finds even more dangerous. She stands in the middle of the room for a moment, eyes darting from one to the other, sizing each of them up and trying to decide which one she can annoy without landing herself in hot water.

'Are you just gonna gawk, or was there something in particular you wanted?' her father demands from his place at the table, and Martina jumps and finds her voice.

'Roger's on the phone.'

Her dad gets abruptly out of the chair and stalks out of the room to take the call.

The kitchen is silent, other than the sound of her mother stirring away- and the constant click-clicking is getting on Martina's nerves. With a deft glance in her direction, she crosses the floor and cranes her head round the door, trying to hear what's going on.

'_Un-bloody-believable!_' comes a shout from the other room. She flinches, and then leans in again, wondering just what Roger's done now.

'Martina, don't eavesdrop.'

She ignores her mother. Her dad is really giving Roger what-for over the telephone, mingling a lot of rather harsh-sounding words she's never heard the likes of before with refrains of _and why should we 'elp you out?_

'_Martina Pamela Shirley McKenna_, I mean it- I'll send you upstairs.'

Martina grumbles, but she moves an inch or two away from the door. The last thing she needs right now is to be banished up there- she wouldn't be able to hear a word. She trudges across and sits down at the table, straining her ears and shutting her eyes, because she's been taught at school that apparently you can hear better if you do so.

'Oh, well, that's it, that takes the _bloody_ biscuit!' Not that she needs to. No sooner has she positioned herself than her father's storming back in, red in the face and fists clenched so tightly they're practically going purple.

'Geoff,' her mother mutters, jerking her head in Martina's direction.

'Oh, what does it matter? She's no doubt heard worse from that _idiot_ son of ours- what d'you think he's done now, eh?'

'Well, you're obviously intent on tellin' me,' her mam replies, 'so what's the point in me guessin'?'

'I'll _tell_ you what he's done,' her dad goes on, 'I'll bloody well _tell_ you, love- 'e's gone and got 'imself slung in the nick!'

Martina freezes. Her mother, however, just sighs, not in the least bit surprised or shocked. 'Unruly behaviour again, was it?'

'If _only_. No, our son 'as graduated to a new low- he's been buyin' and sellin' bloody _stolen record players _now!'

'Well, you were the one 'oo said 'e needed ter start makin' a livin' fer 'imself…'

'I 'ad somethin' _honest_ in mind!'

'Oh, yeah, because gamblin's an honest way o' tryin' ter get money, isn't it?'

'Oh, you're back ter that again, aren't you? You're back to that again!' he turns on her, breathing through his teeth. A few seconds pass in which they do nothing but glare, and Martina thinks she might say something, if she could think of something to say. She's still processing all this. Roger in gaol. Stolen record players. Roger wouldn't have _known_ they were stolen, would he?

Her Dad breaks eye contact first, clasping his hands behind his back and pacing the width of the kitchen.

'e wants us ter bail 'im out- the _nerve of 'im!'_

She has no idea what that means, but Martina isn't liking this conversation one bit. She sits, rooted to her chair, biting her nails and hanging onto every word.

'Well, we're gonna have to, love.'

'Why not? It's 'is own fault- and serve 'im right! Leave 'im in gaol to rot!'

'You can't!' Martina screams, the words leaving her mouth before she knows she's going to say them, on her feet without realising she's gotten up.

Her mam just rolls her eyes. ' 'e's not goin' to, Martina. He's not goin' to.'

'And why should I 'elp 'im out?'

'Oh, I'll remember you sayin' this when _you_ next 'ave a debt ter pay and you come grovellin' to _me_ fer money.'

Her Dad's eyes flash ferociously, and then he growls, kicking one of the chairs. '_Fine_, then. I'll go down the police station and bail the idiot out- but be it on your 'ead.'

He marches across the kitchen, aiming a filthy scowl at Martina's mother as he passes her.

Martina follows him, unsure why she's doing so, still unsure, as a matter of fact, just what's going on. All she can comprehend is that Roger is in gaol, that there's some bail thing that has to be done, that her dad has to do it or he might be stuck there for good.

She wants to ask him what's going to happen, but he brushes her aside as she comes close.

'Martina, get out of the way!' he snaps, snatching his coat up from the hook and flinging the back door open as he strides outside.

* * *

Roger arrives home to disapproving stares. He pushes past his parents, ignoring the lectures they try to throw up at him, and ascends the stairs, pausing to kiss the top of Martina's head as she comes onto the landing to greet him.

'Do you have to go back to prison?' she demands.

'No,' he says wearily, and turns to retreat into his bedroom. Martina's not letting him fob her off so easily. She follows him, tugs on his sleeve.

'So? What 'appened?'

' Dad bailed me out.'

'What's that mean, then?'

'It means…' Roger shrugs one shoulder, figuring out how to put it. 'It means they paid money to the police station so I could go home- at least until me court case.'

'Like a bribe?'

'No, no, not a bribe,' Roger says. 'You're allowed to do this-it's different.'

'But _how_ exactly?'

'Oh, I don't know, pet. They offer it. You give a certain amount of money and you can go home instead of staying in prison- just until you go to court, that is. You still have to 'ave yer trial- you can still get sentenced, but you get to stay at home until then. If you've paid, that is.'

'Sounds like a bribe to _me_.'

Roger gives her a funny look. 'How'd you even _know_ about bribes?'

'You told me about 'em,' she says pointedly.

'Oh, yeah. So I did.'

She pauses. 'You sold stolen record players, Dad said.'

'Yeah.'

'_You_ didn't steal them, did you?'

He shakes his head, and she exhales with relief. Of course he wouldn't.

'Bought 'em off a bloke down the pub. He said I could get a good price for 'em- you know, buy 'em off him and sell 'em for double what I paid. You can make good money doin' that. I've got mates who've made it work.'

'Oh,' says Martina, not fully understanding. 'But you- you didn't _know_ they were stolen, did you?'

He doesn't answer.

'_Did you_?' she says again.

Roger closes his eyes. 'Look, I might have _suspected_, pet…'

'Oh.'

Roger slumps against the wall, and she reaches out and tugs at his sleeve.

'You really _are_ a bad lot, aren't you?' Martina asks solemnly.

Roger nods, a sad smile on his face. ' 'Fraid so, kid.'

Martina ponders this for a while.

'I don't care,' she announces at last.

Roger looks even sadder. 'You probably should.'

* * *

Martina's learned a new word. _Sarcasm._

It took her a little while to get her head around it when she came across it in her book, a few attempts to spell when she wrote it down (though, no, she refused to simply copy it out her book- if something's worth doing she's going to do it properly) and she struggled a little through the dictionary definition, eventually slamming it shut, hurling it and going to ask Roger for a more practical explanation, but at last she's grasped the concept.

_Sarcasm_. She likes the way it sounds in her mouth. _Sar-caz-um._ She likes everything it connotes- it fairly screams her name. From what she's pieced together, people use it when they're trying to put others down, when said others say or do something particularly stupid, and the concept appeals to some twisted part of Martina's mind. Her first few attempts at it aren't particularly successful. It's hard to differentiate it from merely saying _no_ to a question and sounding a little on the nasty side, but if she needs to see it in practice, all she has to do is watch her parents argue for a few minutes. Her mam, she realises, uses it frequently, generally when retaliating to something her father's said (_oh, yeah, because gamblin's a brilliant way of makin' money, isn't it, love? No, love, I'm sayin' you _should_ keep wastin' our money, because it's _so_ lovely 'avin' ter struggle to pay every single bill…)_ and she repeats each example in her head, trying to rework and apply it to a situation in her own life.

When she does manage to use it successfully, though, it happens without her even realising what she's doing.

It's during a particularly difficult maths class, and Martina, rather than swallowing her pride and asking for help on the problem she's been stuck on for the last twenty minutes, just rubs her forehead and fumes, getting more and more worked up until in a fit of frustration she viciously scrunches the paper up in her hands.

'What do you think you're doing, young lady?' comes the shocked voice of her teacher, who's beside her desk in a matter of seconds and crossly taking the crumpled wad of paper from her. 'Do you have an issue with the set task, Miss McKenna?'

'No, sir, I did that because I was enjoyin' meself, o' course,' she says irritably, and gets thwacked with a ruler for her insolence.

Martina sits there with her lips pressed to her knuckles, mulling the incident over. She's astounded by how naturally the words spilled from her mouth when she wasn't thinking about it, and as she reflects on her success, she smirks into the back of her hand.

It comes easily to her after that.

'Eh,' Monica says one day, approaching her, as she usually does nowadays, to taunt her, 'is it true your brother got arrested the other week for flogging stolen gear?'

Martina smiles dangerously. 'Is it any o' your business?'

'You know,' Monica holds her gaze, 'if you weren't such a cow to me all the time, I might still have wanted ter be friends with you.'

Martina's eyes rotate in their sockets. 'I'm _heartbroken._'

'I mean it. We could've been great mates- if you hadn't been so _mean_- and so _borin'_ all the time…'

'Such a shame, love,' Martina says, 'such a shame.'

Monica screws up her nose, and then gives up. 'I'm gonna go away from you now.'

'I'll _try_ not ter cry,' Martina says, and turns her back on her.

She might be overusing her newfound skill now, but it's a novelty, and, she's discovered, quite a good defence against those who try to make her feel useless.

And, all that aside, she's surprisingly good at it.

And so, with the concept of sarcasm under her belt, her life goes on.

* * *

When Martina is nine, she tastes whiskey for the first time. It is, of course, Roger's doing.

'Eh. 'Tina,' he whispers, and she gets up from where she's seated at the foot of the stairs, looks up and sees him crouched on the landing, beckoning to her. 'Want to see something good?'

As soon as the words leave his mouth she knows whatever he wants to show her is wrong, is inappropriate, is something her parents would tell her to avoid. But she's a child, and the idea of getting away with something with her big brother, with Roger, who's so bad and yet she hero-worships all the same. It's all fuel for an inquisitive young mind, and so she immediately and without question follows him upstairs.

She's never been inside Roger's room before, has never been allowed, and the instant she steps over the threshold she's nearly knocked over backwards by the overpowering smell. It reminds her of when they walk past a pub, only much worse. Martina suddenly feels very dizzy.

Roger grins at her conspiratorially, and despite how she's feeling, she grins back, because this seems exciting and wonderfully naughty and she's glimpsing a world she's heard enough about but has never really been permitted to understand.

He reaches under the bed and pulls out a bottle in a paper bag.

'Grab me those glasses over there,' he instructs, and she fumbles around on the dresser until she finds what he means- two grimy shot-glasses, the remains of whatever was last in them stuck to the bottom. She examines them in mildly disgusted curiosity before handing them over.

'Are we gonna get drunk?'

'Of course not,' Roger says. 'I just thought you might want a little taste.'

Martina's a little bit disappointed, and at the same time a little bit relieved. She considers. Roger might be a bit of a bad lot, have some silly ideas sometimes, but he'd never hurt her. She trusts him.

'Okay.'

He pours out barely an eighth of an inch into the bottom of her glass, fills his to the brim and clinks them.

'There you go. Don't tell Mam and Dad, will you?'

'Of course not,' Martina says, looking at him like he's a total pillock, 'I don't tell them _anything._'

Roger downs his in one big gulp. Martina gazes at her few drops of whiskey, shrugs and does the same.

It burns.

She yelps and splutters, drops the glass to the ground.

Well, _that's_ certainly not what she was expecting. It always looks so golden and nice, does whiskey, and from the amount of it Roger consumes she'd imagined it must taste incredibly delicious (oh, she's not stupid, she knows alcohol's addictive, but nothing can be _that_ addictive without some other good qualities as well, her nine-year-old mind reasons). It doesn't really taste of anything except perhaps wood pulp, not that she's really concentrating on the taste, because all she can register is the fire going down her throat and chest and into her belly.

'Rog,' she coughs, 'that's awful!' She shudders, shudders again and screws up her face. 'Why would you want ter be addicted to _this_?'

Roger laughs. 'It's not exactly somethin' I chose, pet- it just sort o' happened.'

She wipes her mouth against the back of her sleeve, shaking her head at him.

'Well, now you know what it's like,' Roger says, putting on that serious voice he sometimes attempts when he's lecturing her on something or other.

'Why did you let me…'

'I think, pet, that sometimes the best way to learn about things is to experience 'em first hand. You're gettin' old enough to start knowin' things, and…'

'Er, I thought I _already_ knew things,' Martina interjects.

'Well, yeah, but…'

'You _always _tell me things…'

'Oh, stop it, you, I'm tryin' to make a point. Now listen,' he kneels beside her, straightening the collar on her blouse, smoothing back a strand of hair that's come loose from her plait, 'the thing is, I was never allowed any alcohol when I was young, and then the instant I came of age I went out and got absolutely bladdered.'

She stares at him quizzically.

'It means drunk,' he clarifies. 'And I mean _badly_ drunk. See, not bein' allowed any made me want it more badly, and so I abused it when I had the chance, and I think that's what might've made me…'

'What you are today,' she finishes. So far he makes good sense.

'Exactly, pet. Exactly. And I just thought that maybe if you _did_ have a little, if you didn't feel deprived, well, you wouldn't be tempted to do the same.'

'I see.' And she does. What he's saying works. And, to be honest, now she _has_ had some, she doesn't feel like having any more. If that's what drinking's like, that disgusting, burning experience, then she's not keen to take it up as a habit. She can still taste that whiskey in her mouth, a bit. Ugh, it is nasty stuff.

Even so, as she watches her big brother pour himself another glass, she's overcome with the enticement to ask him something, just to see what his reaction is.

She gives him a wily smile. 'Can I have another glass, then?'

Roger hesitates.

'Er,' he says, tugging at a lock of his hair, 'pet, I don't think…I thought you said you didn't like it!'

Martina recognises at once that he's trying to change the subject, that he's terribly uncomfortable. She squints evilly at him.

'I thought _you_ said it was better if I _didn't_ feel deprived,' she teases.

The worry fades from Roger's features, and he laughs, mussing her hair. 'You are a _wicked_ little thing sometimes.' He puts his glass to one side, kneels on the floor and rifles around under his bed again, retrieving two different bottles. 'Tell you what, we won't try any more today- enough is enough for one day- but I'll tell you about the different types, if you like.'

Well, that's fair enough, she supposes. She sits down on the floor beside him, and he takes her through a few brands, explaining what makes particular varieties popular or famous. He explains a bit about other types of alcohol, too- wine, beer, all the usual suspects, most of which she knows about, and tells her about the different alcoholic content in each one, about how some are more concentrated than others, and thus can't be drunk in such large quantities. And, though quite a bit of it goes over her head, Martina tries to take it in all the same.

They sit there for who knows how long, and Martina starts to get sleepy, even though it surely can't be later than six. She should probably get up and go now, she thinks- she still has homework to do, and she can't go another evening without working on it at all, much as she'd like to just go to bed now- but as she stands, something catches her eye.

'What's that?' she asks, pointing at a rather oddly-shaped black bottle in the corner of the room. Roger follows her gaze, and then frowns.

'Oh, _that_. That's home brew, that is. A mate o' mine tried to make his own Scotch.'

'Is that one any good?'

Roger shakes his head comically. 'Nooo, it's complete crap, that one. He 'ad no idea what 'e was doin'- it's not distilled properly, and its alcoholic content's about twice what it should be. That's an under-the-table one, pet, at the very least. Don't ever touch it.'

He says these last four words so sternly, so strictly that Martina doesn't know what to make of them. They're so unlike him, and so out-of-keeping with everything he just said about experiencing things first-hand to avoid excess in the future.

'_Roger!_' comes a call from downstairs, and she's prevented from asking any more on the subject. Both of them freeze. Martina can feel her heart thumping, wondering just what would happen if they got caught doing all _this_.

'_Telephone for you!'_ their dad yells up, and both McKenna siblings let out identical sighs of relief. '_It's one of your bloody mates!'_

'I'd better take this,' Rog says, making a grunting noise as he gets up off the floor, 'now you go and brush yer teeth so there's no Scotch on yer breath, all right? And don't tell anyone about this.'

'Oh, yeah, because this'd be a _wonderful_ thing ter tell me teachers,' she says, slipping in her obligatory once-daily-or-more use of sarcasm just because she can. Roger just tuts, pats her on the back and heads out to answer the phone.

Martina groans, stretches and starts to pull herself onto her feet, but as she does, her gaze is dragged back to the corner, as if by a magnet, towards that forbidden bottle.

Roger's never told her no before. Her parents have. Her teachers have. But never Roger. And at nine, she's still _just_ immature enough to take his order not to touch it as a challenge.

So naturally she touches it. Naturally she _drinks_ some of it, just because Roger's Roger, and he isn't allowed to tell her no. It's against the rules. Roger doesn't forbid her to do things. She just wants a sip, that's all, but the bottle is heavy, and as she tilts the neck toward her lips it tilts, and it gushes into her mouth before she can stop it.

'Urrgh!' Martina gargles, spitting, but unable to stop a fair bit going down her throat. She leans against the dresser, her oesophagus on fire, reluctantly swallowing, because the only other alternative is to choke on it. Oh, that's awful. _Horrible._ How much did she just drink?

It's a few moments after she swallows a good deal of the substance that something starts to happen.

Martina can't really describe it- her balance just disappears, the room lurching around, and she whirls her head around, confused, wondering when Roger's bedroom suddenly turned into a boat. She can feel her cheeks heating up, and her breath's coming out her mouth in shallow pants. She drops the bottle to the ground and clutches at her throat with both hands, wondering why it feels so tight, wondering why, _why_ can't she think straight, _why_ is it that she so desperately wants to be sick but it isn't happening?

'Hey, pet, I was just gonna- _Martina?!'_

Roger's face turns to horror as he comes through the door and beholds her there- Heaven knows what she must look like.

'What did you do?'

'I feel sick.'

_'What did you do?'_

'Rog…' Martina says weakly, her vision blurring, and she sees the eyes of two Rogers widen as he pieces together what's happened.

'I told you not to!' he hollers, snatching the bottle off the floor from where she's dropped it, his voice amusingly high for a bloke of his age, only Martina's not alert enough to really notice. She's slipping away from consciousness, everything's spinning, it's nauseatingly awful and she wants to let go but at the same time, she's frightened- she wants to climb back out of whatever's trying to drag her down.

'You never tell me not to,' she protests weakly.

'Well maybe that might suggest to your thick little brain that when I _do_, I _mean it!'_ He paces, and the whole room seems to tilt with him. She lets her eyes start to shut.

'No, 'Tina, don't,' he's shaking her, trying to hold her upright but his voice is becoming murky, sort of underwater-sounding, and he's got multiple heads blurring out of focus and then back into one again. Martina manages to throw up all over him before she passes out.

* * *

She wakes to bright light and strange noises.

Martina tries to sit up. Her throat hurts more than she can ever remember- and she's had some bad colds in her time. She feels empty- completely hollowed out, and yet she's got the most insistent urge to vomit, despite feeling like she's got nothing _to_ vomit out.

She leans over the edge of the bed to give in to the urge and then shuts her eyes again.

* * *

She wakes again, this time with a disgusting burnt taste in her mouth, to nurses and her mother and father standing over her, the latter two looking more terrified than she would have thought possible. She raises her head from her pillow, coming to her senses and realising she's in hospital. That would explain the harsh light, the sort of antiseptic smell, the nurse standing on one side of her bed, glaring at her, her forehead tarnished with line after line after line.

Martina manages to push herself into a sitting position, wincing at the discomfort and nausea that accompany the movement.

'Martina,' her mother's voice comes out strange, sort of squeaky and husky at the same time, and she sits down by her side, putting one hand on her back. The gesture confuses her a little bit.

She opens her mouth, trying to drag words up past the hideous soreness- her throat could have been sandpapered for all she knows-and after a few attempts, manages to find her voice.

'What…' she begins, then changes her mind. 'Where…why…' she can't really think of something appropriate to say.

'You've 'ad yer stomach pumped,' her dad says, and she looks down at the starched blankets covering her lap, trying to register this and comprehend it somehow. Whatever was in that brew of Roger's mate's, it was pretty dangerous stuff. _Whiskey_ seems like dangerous stuff- she's never going to touch it again, that's for certain. Perhaps Roger's little lesson, his attempt to stop her from becoming addicted like him, worked after all, she thinks. She almost laughs at the idea.

'Drink this,' instructs the nurse, handing her a paper cup full of absolutely _vile_-looking black liquid.

'What is it?'

'Just _do_ it, Martina,' comes her mam's voice, but she's not going to have this filthy stuff foisted on her without an explanation.

'What is it?' she repeats.

The nurse looks annoyed at her impertinence. 'It's activated charcoal,' she says, pressing it more firmly into her hand and trying to force her to tip it up to her face, 'it'll absorb any poison still in your system.'

'_Charcoal_?' Martina wrinkles her nose. 'Why don't I just go and lick a fireplace?'

The nurse looks absolutely _infuriated_ now, but her parents just exchange glances- they're used to her dry, disrespectful attitude.

'Martina,' her mam says quietly, 'just _drink it.'_

She's never felt particularly obliged to follow the few instructions her elders dish out, but her mother isn't instructing her, she seems to be _pleading_ with her, and Martina decides that she's done enough disobeying for one day. That's what got her into this mess in the first place- if she'd just done what Roger said, she wouldn't _have_ to be in here drinking the disgusting charcoal.

Apprehensively, she takes a sip, and immediately retches.

It's revolting- even worse than it looks, thick and chalky and muddy and just…_ugh_. She doesn't think she can possibly get any more down, but the nurse threatens to put a tube down her nose and give it to her that way if she doesn't take it like a good girl, and so, with that horrid woman and both her parents standing over her, she forces herself to swallow the entire cup, then another, then another. It's practically putting her in tears, having to endure mouthful after mouthful, and it sticks to her palate and her tongue, clags in between her teeth, but she endures it nonetheless, mulishly determined not to have that cow of a nurse come anywhere near her nose.

When at last she's satisfied that Martina's had enough, the aforementioned cow says a few curt words to her parents and clacks away, leaving her alone with them.

'I hope you've learned something from this,' says her dad. Martina nods. Not just something. _Several _things. She's exhausted now, though, and actually listing them would be far too much effort right now.

'Good,' says her father, reaching out and awkwardly rubbing her shoulder. 'I'll come back and check on you later- I've got ter get down the bettin' shop. There's a dead cert runnin' in the two thirty- and we need the money if we wanna pay for yer 'ospital bills.'

Martina can practically feel her mother rolling her eyes at him as she leaves. She stares after him, trying to remember a time when she's ever heard him speak so softly to her, in such a friendly tone. She can't.

She supposes she can hardly talk about a normal situation, given that today (if it _is_ still today and not tomorrow) she's drunk whiskey, had her stomach pumped and drunk charcoal from a cup, but _that_…that is just _odd._

It gets odder, though.

The moment he's out the room, her mam wraps her arms around her, cradling her like she's never done before. Martina can only remember one incident in her life when she's been hugged by her mother- and she'd been in a strangely good mood that day. Most of the affection she receives in that department comes from her brother.

But now her mam's holding her like she's about to disappear.

'Don't you _ever_ do that again, Martina, not _ever_, do you understand?'

'Are you angry?' Martina asks, her mouth buried in her shoulder, utterly befuddled.

'Not angry, Martina- just _frightened_. Just don't you _ever_…what was your brother _thinkin'_? What kind of…how anyone could even _consider_ gettin' a nine-year-old girl _drunk_ like that…'

'Wasn't his fault,' Martina tries to explain, but she's not allowed to get further than that.

'I just can't believe it…this is a _nightmare_- just you keep out of his room from now on, do you hear me? And just…just don't _ever do this again!'_

Her rant lasts for several minutes, is incredibly repetitive, and is quite welcomed by Martina, who just leans against her mam's shoulder and listens to it, pondering. These aren't the words of someone who doesn't want you- these sentiments, these expressions of fear of losing her, they aren't the sort of things you'd say to someone you wished didn't exist. And Martina considers that maybe she…no, that'd be a stretch. She's not going to leap to any conclusions she'll regret, isn't going to change her mind about her family so easily.

But it does give her a lot to think about.

* * *

'I am so, so sorry, kid,' Roger says the instant she's brought home, crushing her in one of the most uncomfortably tight embraces of her life. He's crying- something she's never even imagined of him, let alone seen before.

'I shouldn't have done that- I thought I was doin' the right thing, tryin' ter teach you about life, but I nearly killed you- oh, Martina, I'm so sorry…'

Martina's a little bit cross about the whole affair, about the being sick and about the hospital and having her stomach pumped and all, but all the attention she finds she rather liked. And though she's not going to get herself chucked in there again just to get fussed over (she's not _that_ stupid) she thinks, all in all, it was a pretty interesting experience. She learned a few things.

For one, not to touch the stuff Roger has in his room.

But for another, perhaps more importantly, that when it seems like they might lose her, people all of a sudden start acting like they care, like she's worth enough to save, so maybe, she reasons, she's not that unwanted after all.

'That's okay,' she says after less than a second of deliberation, and hugs him back.

It's really very easy to forgive Roger. It shouldn't be.

But it is.

* * *

For two glorious weeks she's the centre of attention. Somehow, word gets out at school about her little escapade, and she suddenly gains a multitude of new friends, fascinated by what occurred, begging for her to tell the story. She's admired, even though what happened doesn't seem all that admirable to her.

Her teachers ask if she's all right, if she still feels too sick to do any work, and so she gets out of a whole day's worth of classes.

Her parents sit and chat to her every night, ask her about school, say proper cautionary things when she leaves the house, such as _wear a scarf, it's cold outside_ and _don't do anything we wouldn't do_, (well, she's allowed to go into the betting shop, then), panic if she so much changes her breathing pattern, as if they're afraid something will happen to her again.

But something feels just a little bit off about it. Yes, she has people hanging around her, hanging on her words, but it doesn't feel right. She doesn't want to be liked just because she might have died, or at the very least been horribly sick. She despises the idea that she's playing off people's pity, because people feel sorry for her- or conversely that she's gained popularity because they think it's exciting that she was rebellious enough to drink her brother's booze. If people are going to like her, she'd rather it was because they liked her anyway, and so she begins to chase away her new admirers at school, alternating between telling them to get lost and just staring at them, glaring, until they get the hint that she wants to be left alone.

And another thing- not one bit of it was her fault, as far as the grown-ups are concerned, even though she's actually the one who drank the stuff. It's all the fault of 'that bad lot of a brother of hers', she hears them whispering, the one who's 'leading her astray'. She overhears her parents unleashing their fury on him for nights on end after she comes home from hospital, warning him that he's crossed the line, that if there's one more incident, even one more, he's out for good. She catches the phrase 'a terrible influence on young minds' more than once, from more than one different person. She hears talk of police or welfare workers or some other sorts of official people, the names of whom she doesn't catch, being called in to 'investigate' and it frightens her so much that she begins kneeling beside her bed praying desperately everyone will just forget about it, will let the whole incident drop. The thought that Roger might be taken from her is too much to bear- he's the only one that really loves her (_really _loves her, not this sudden love spawned from dutiful concern that she's not quite sure about yet) and if he's a bad lot, she thinks, well, who cares, anyway? She'd rather spend time with a bad lot who cares, in his own way, even if he does make a few mistakes, than all the 'good' people in the world who seem to only notice she exists when it's almost too late. How much of a 'good influence' can someone be if they're not even around to influence her most of the time?

And so it's a relief when things go back to normal, and she almost finds herself rejoicing when she hears the words _get out of the way_ again.

If she wants attention, she's going to find a better way of getting it. No stupid stunts, and _definitely_ no plays for pity. Until then, _get out of the way_ is all well and good.

And so life goes on.

* * *

'Rog, what's…'

'Don't ask me, pet.'

Roger doesn't even look up at her, keeps his face resolutely hidden behind his newspaper, and Martina feels the sting of rejection. This won't do. She's not going to let him get away with this.

She snatches the paper from his hands, ripping it but unable to care less.

'Roger, _look at me_.'

' 'Tina, don't. I know what you're tryin' ter do- and I'm not gonna tell you any more things, okay, pet?'

She sits down beside him with a bump. 'Why?'

He raises his head. Well, she's gotten him to face her, anyway. 'Are you honestly tellin' me you can't work out why, pet?'

Oh, please, _no_.

'Are _you_ honestly tellin' me just because o' the whiskey thing that you're not gonna…you're not…ever?'

Roger drops his paper into his lap, squares his shoulders, folds his hands. 'No, I've come to a serious decision, Martina. You could've died from alcohol poisoning the other day…'

'Oh, I could _not_…'

'And it was my fault- it was because I wasn't bein' responsible. No, never again, 'Tina. From now on, I'm gonna be a good influence, a bloody-er, a _really_ good one. I'm never gonna let you get into that sort o' trouble again- I know I've made a lot o' mistakes, and I'm bloody well gonna- oh, bugger- oh-!' he claps a hand over his mouth, breathing slowly in and out for a while. 'I'm…_certainly_ gonna make up for those mistakes now.'

Martina's rather amused at his feeble attempts not to swear in front of her, but she doesn't know what to think about the rest of his speech. She bites her lip.

It's the right thing, of course. He wants to be a better person- and even she can't deny that perhaps his interactions with her haven't exactly been age-appropriate, not after what's happened. But if he starts going over-the-top, starts refusing to have anything to do with her 'for her own good' then she will get very angry indeed.

She expresses all this to him, stomping her foot on his for emphasis.

Roger winces, sighs and then puts his arm round her shoulders. 'What do I always say to you, Martina? I'll never abandon you- _ever_. I promised you, didn't I?'

She nods.

'And I meant it, pet, I meant it.'

'Good.' She snuggles closer to him.

'But in order to do that, I've got ter straighten up and fly right, be a better role model. For your sake.'

'Yeah, all _right_,' Martina says. 'Just so long as you stay with me.'

'C'mere,' says Roger, opening his arms and hugging her with all his might. Martina relaxes into the warmth of his torso and the familiar stale smell of Scotch and shuts her eyes.

'But Rog,' she says after a time, 'I really do need to know-'

' 'Tina, _please.'_

'You could just tell me _basically_ what things are,' Martina insists. 'Just so I know _why_ they're dangerous.'

He sighs again. 'Oh, _all right._ One question- but I'm not gonna tell you anything you don't need to know at this age, 'kay?'

And as she asks her question and he carefully begins to answer, the thin end of the wedge is pushed in.

* * *

Martina comes home one afternoon to find her mother surrounded by an enormous pile of clothes, none of which belong to anyone in her family, pulling a needle and thread through a tear in the sleeve of a hideous green coat. She looks quizzically at her before flinging her bag down and squeezing onto what little space is left on the sofa.

'What are you doin'?'

Her mam pauses halfway through a stitch. 'I'm cookin', Martina.'

She ignores the sarcasm. She supposes she'd have said the same. It occurs to Martina that she and her mother are very alike. She'd quite possibly like her, sometimes, if she didn't always carry with her that memory, four years ago now, of her parents discussing just how unwanted she was- is. She can't let go of it- but oh, she wants to. She wonders if her parents have ever changed their minds about her. She hasn't given them much reason to, she has to be honest- her profound skill at holding a grudge has seeped through into nearly every interaction with them. But now, she can't even fathom why, she just has a sudden, unprecedented desire to see- just to _see_, mind, what would happen if she tried a different approach. She can't forget being unwanted, it's true, but neither can she forget that image of her mam, pale as a sheet, standing over her hospital bed, worried out of her mind. It's haunted her for nearly a year, and sometimes she wonders if maybe something might have changed…

It can't hurt to try, she decides. She's used to disappointment, if it doesn't work, if she's treated no differently, if she's shunned, it'll be nothing new.

'Would…' she begins, and pauses. It feels strange to be doing this, the words trying to hide in her throat, to not come out. She persists, though, because when she decides to do something, she's determined to see it through. 'Would…you like some 'elp?'

Her mam stares at her like she's grown an extra head. 'What did you just say?'

Martina turns her head away to roll her eyes, because to annoy her wouldn't be beneficial to her experiment. 'D'you need me to help?' she repeats.

'Yeah, I thought that's what you said…' her mother muses. 'That's not like you…' she clears her throat, and addresses her directly. 'You do know how to sew, don't you?'

She does, but it's not something she's ever excelled at. Still, she nods, lets herself be handed a needle and a shirt with a few stitches gone in the arms, and she makes the best of it. They sit in silence for a few minutes, but Martina can feel her mother's eyes on her, watching her with genuine curiosity.

She's not the only one who's puzzled. Martina can't help but ask the question on her mind.

'Why are we doin' this, exactly?'

Her mother's shoulders tense. 'I, er…I 'ad to take this sewing in, you see. We need the money.'

Ah. That makes sense. 'Has Dad been 'avin' more 'friendly games' with 'is mates?'

She doesn't have to see it to know that her mam's pursing her lips at this comment.

'Martina, go upstairs,' she grits out.

Martina goes upstairs.

* * *

She has a good mind to let that be that. Some things can't change. Maybe it's wrong to try.

But the next afternoon, she sits down again, takes up the shirt she had yesterday and picks up where she left off.

They don't speak. Martina doesn't want to tempt fate- it's too easy to pick up a cue and let a snidey comment fall from her mouth, and she just knows that if that happens she'll get sent upstairs again and this time, she won't be inclined to give it another go.

They work in silence until six o'clock, at which time her mother puts her needlework away and announces that it's high time she started making dinner. She hesitates for a moment, and gives Martina the smallest of smiles before retreating into the kitchen.

Martina sits there for a while, replaying that smile over and over in her mind, not daring to think that this might mean her plan is working.

She's managing to make the situation at home a bit more tolerable, that's all. It'd be fairly optimistic to think that perhaps she could suddenly build a relationship with one of her parents just by helping her out a little bit. It's going to take some work, and some patience on her part- which she's not happily anticipating. She doesn't like to have to wait long for anything.

But this is a start.

And if it does happen. _If it does_…

Martina has, for perhaps the first time in all her ten years, a slightly bright picture of the future. She generally tends not to dwell on it, lives in the present almost completely, with a few jaunts back to the past to reflect on some of her more unpleasant experiences, and she _certainly_ doesn't tend to think about possible ways to be happy in the future. But she's thought of one now. She can see herself almost, just _nearly,_ as happy as some of her friends seem to be. She can see herself nearly, almost being loved. And that might be worth trying for, she decides.

* * *

Martina's life begins to enter a new phase- calm and comfortable, and she likes it this way. Every aspect has its own little place, and there are no changes to have to deal with, no sudden upheavals or hospital admissions or anything else to have to fret about. Her brother still drinks, her father still gambles, her mother still takes in whatever extra work she can to pay off the debts they run up between them, and the rows keep on coming, but nothing too terrible shakes them up.

Roger, true to his word, is trying to remodel himself into a better man. He gets a job for the first time any of them can remember, causing cups to smash on the floor when he announces it, and though he gets sacked after a fortnight and yelled at for it, they're all three proud of him for having tried.

School is…_alright_, though Martina still doesn't know what she's bothering for. She talks to Caroline sometimes, a couple of other people she knows when she feels like it, keeps to herself when she's not in the mood to interact. It might not be the best social life, but it suffices quite well enough to keep her from feeling lonely, and that's all she'd really hoped for anyway.

And she and her Mam keep on sewing each night. Martina's not optimistic, doesn't want to decide once and for all that they've bonded, nothing like that, but she is pleased with the progress they've made. They talk while they're doing it, or rather her Mam usually just rants about the sordid state of the world and Martina either listens or tunes out, but occasionally her mother will turn to her and ask a question, and Martina will feel a little flicker of hope. And so she supplies her with what's going on in her life, when she's asked, tells what little there _is_ to tell about her friendships (her mam comes over quite strange when she realises how very little Martina tends to interact with other children; Martina can't think why) and, as weeks turn into months, occasionally volunteers her feelings on a given day, her annoyances or grievances or rare gladness over a particularly pleasant incident.

She's not entirely convinced her mother's all that interested, and she still can't get past the _accident-they-could-have-avoided_ memory entirely, but she's going to stubbornly see this through nonetheless, because _something_ seems to be working, anyway.

'Shouldn't you be gettin' yer school report around this time of year?' her mam asks, out of the blue one night.

'Last week,' Martina mutters without taking her eyes off the book she's reading.

Her mother hums. 'Were you not thinkin' of showin' me at all?'

Martina nearly chokes. It's never occurred to her to show her parents her progress at school. The rest of her class do, she knows that, and there are always laments about what'll happen to them when such-and-such a bad score comes to light, but Martina's never felt either worried or pleased about hers. She never reveals her results to anyone, and no-one ever asks, and that's all there is to it.

Her mouth twists. 'I didn't think you'd want ter see it.'

Martina's mother gives her a strangely reproachful look. 'Martina, _go and get it!'_

So she does, puzzled out of her wits, and sits on the edge of the sofa, unsure what she should be thinking as she watches her go over it.

'What 'appened 'ere?'

Martina frowns and leans over. Yes, she's got her finger on Martina's mark for arithmetic- significantly lower than the rest of her results.

She looks away. 'I couldn't do it.'

'I see.' A pause. 'Why didn't you ask fer 'elp?'

Martina shrugs- it seems obvious enough to her. 'Why would anyone 'elp me?'

Her Mam just looks at her for a long time, a series of strange emotions passing over her face, the only one of which Martina can recognise is disbelief.

Martina turns her head away. This whole conversation is just doing her head in, completely scrambling the circuits of her brain. It doesn't make sense. This is…well, it's a _normal_ sort of conversation, and they don't do normal, just a basic veneer of it for the benefit of outsiders.

'Well,' says her mother eventually, 'you're doin' well in most things, aren't yer? But I want you ter get that maths mark seen to.'

She tosses the report back into Martina's lap, picks up her needle and thread again.

'And I want you to show me your report from now on, all right?'

Martina nods, still dumbfounded. They go back to the needlework, not broaching the subject again, but Martina contemplates it all for a long time. Maybe she's been wrong, not giving her parents any opportunities to be involved in her life. Perhaps if she had, she could have made all this better a lot earlier on- has she been the one shutting them out, shutting off any possibilities of a relationship?

Well, yes, she concludes after weighing everything up- but she's had good reason to.

She thinks harder, playing back _that_ incident, trying to remember their exact words. _We might as well try and make something useful out of her_, one of them had said- she can't remember which one now. _Well_, that would explain her mam's sudden interest with her school results. Perhaps they're going to make a start on shaping her into an asset now.

'D'you…' she tests the water, 'd'you think I could be…_useful_?' She chokes on the word, finding it a strain not to make it sound like an expletive.

'Of _course_ you could, love,' her mam says, without so much as a glance in her direction, 'of course you could.'

The tone of her voice is reassuring, but it just confirms Martina's suspicions. She reaffirms her vow not to get too hopeful about the time they spend together.

But she does keep coming back.

* * *

Time passes.

Martina swallows her pride and asks her teacher for help in maths, and though she doesn't improve much, she does master the basics. Her exam results remain reasonably the same across all areas, though Martina's becoming bored of being told what to do (she's started at a new school this year, has simply _heinous_ teachers who don't take to her at all, and are constantly putting her down), and so her disrespectful attitude increases twofold, and she no longer sees much point in doing what she's told.

Her dad gets a new set of mates, whom he claims are far more responsible blokes than the old set, but within a week there's a rowdy group of idiots round the kitchen table, passing money back and forth and weighing up odds on the most ridiculous of predictions, and Martina's mother has a fit.

Roger works, gets fired, works, gets fired, gives up and goes back on Social Security, much to their parent's disappointment and Martina's relief. She's getting sick of his perfect older brother act, but thankfully it seems to be dissolving now there haven't been any incidents for a while, and he lets himself slip up more and more frequently, until the old Roger, the old, constantly-drunk, bad-influence Roger is standing before her once more.

And she finds she doesn't mind. A few months after she turns twelve, she barges into his room unannounced and insists that she's old enough to make up her own mind about things and wants to try his not-being-deprived approach again.

And after some obligatory complaints on his part, and her insistence that she _has_ learned something from her stomach pumping, you know, and that she's capable of telling for herself what's good for her, they proceed with caution.

Martina has decided, since her experiment with her Mam is going reasonably well, to take a few more risks, just to see what the outcomes will be, and so she has a go at making amends with Monica (_that_ one's a losing battle), and enjoys herself getting up to no good with Rog. He teaches her to play poker after they've sat for an hour making fun of their dad and his latest losses, and she loses six weeks' worth of pocket money to him, deciding with finality that _that's _never going to be repeated again, but at least she's attempted it.

She tries whiskey again, this time in moderation, but decides on the whole she prefers wine more, and so she and her brother secretly work through a bottle of it over the course of a few weeks.

And she tells her mam more things, shares more experiences with her. It's all going quite well, her life. Well, considering. It's nothing special, not particularly exciting, and she still hasn't even an inkling where it's heading, or how it'll all turn out.

But it's all right, it really is. She's getting a tiny taste of parental guidance while simultaneously indulging in a few inappropriate pastimes with her brother- quite a well-rounded education, she thinks.

And it works the way it is. It's not perfect, not even by a long shot, but _it's all right_.

* * *

But there are still occasions when it just doesn't work, just won't hold together. She may be getting on better with her family overall, but she never lets the memory of them saying they don't want her slip her mind, and she makes less and less subtle references to it when she puts herself in a bad mood.

'Stop hangin' round your brother all the time,' Martina's mother says one day, looking up at her from the sewing she's taken in. She's got a great heap of it to get through- Dad must have weakened and played a few more rounds of poker recently for her to be needing that much money.

'Why?' Martina demands, not meeting her gaze. She's not sure whether she's questioning the instruction, which, of course, she has no intention of following, or why her mother's telling her to do so in the first place. It could be to do with the fact that she's been in deep trouble at school six times this week, and each time, Roger's laughed about it with her, while her parents try to shout at her over him and eventually give up. Or perhaps it could be because Roger's finally caved, finally lapsed and has been threatened with the police for non-payment of an enormous drinks tab. Either way, she's about to hear the 'bad influence' speech again, she knows it.

'He's a bad influence on you. He's leading you astray. You need more friends your own age- people who'll set a _good example_ for you to follow.'

Oh, yes. She knew it. Martina gives her a defiant look. 'It's not as if you _care._ You just don't want ter look bad.'

Her mother's eyes are wide and furious. 'How dare you speak to me like that? Go upstairs.'

So she does, yelling 'well, it's _true_!' as she stomps up to her room.

* * *

Two days later Martina sits down on the sofa and her mother turns to her, puts down her sewing and looks her straight in the eye.

It's a bit uncomfortable, and Martina shifts away a little, unsure how she's supposed to react to this.

'_Yes?_'

'Don't speak to me like that.'

Martina raises her eyes upwards and then swivels them down to stare at the floor.

'Martina, I wanted to have a serious conversation with you.'

'Our Roger 'asn't done anythin',' she snaps, immediately on the defensive.

Her Mam just looks at her sadly, as if to remind her of the drinking incident, among many other things.

'Don't think I don't know what you're doin'.'

'What?'

'I _said_ don't speak ter me like that. I know what you and Roger are doin'- he's leadin' you astray and you're lettin' 'im.'

She doesn't expect her mother to fly off at her- though she has been told off a fair bit more lately, as well as being sent upstairs, but her heart still pounds. She just hopes her Mam doesn't _really_ know what she's doing, doesn't know about the drinking and whatnot.

'Roger's a _good_ brother,' she says, her voice inadvertently climbing an octave or so. She gets far too emotional where her brother is concerned- he's her Achilles' heel.

Her Mam just looks at her again.

'He _loves_ me,' Martina says pointedly, though she doesn't think her mother picks up on the snarkier hidden meaning to her words.

'I do know that, love, and I know he tries…in his own way…'

'Then what's the problem?'

'Look,' she squares her shoulders and Martina does likewise, 'you do realise why we warn you about our Roger, don't you? Now I know you love him, but I don't want you goin' down the same road as 'e did- he's gettin' imself into a lot o' danger with 'is drinkin' and spendin' 'abits…'

'I do _know_ that, as it 'appens.' Martina says. How many times does she have to hear this? Everyone seems to be playing the same old tune- and she _is_ aware of just how consuming Rog's addictions are. She's not stupid. She's also aware that everyone who tries to warn her is a victim to some other vice, and she doesn't see why she should be taking advice from hypocrites.

So she won't. At least her brother is open about his problems- does admit there's something wrong with him. That makes him vastly better in her book.

Her mam goes on to point out that Roger gets in trouble with the police far too often, that he's damaging himself, that he's using up all their money (as if Dad isn't), and Martina only half-listens, letting her thoughts wander across to other things- the fact that she needs a haircut, the test she's got coming up that she hardly knows anything for, the three detentions she's yet to work off, that boy she saw across the park the other day and watched for half an hour just because he was unbearably gorgeous. She's almost completely tuned out by the time her mother concludes her lecture.

'Just watch yerself,' she says, 'or you're gonna get hurt.'

_Is that a threat?_ Martina feels like asking, just to gauge the indignation a remark like that would undoubtedly cause, but no, she thinks. The fire's on down here, and it's freezing upstairs. She'd rather not be sent there just now.

So she deigns to mutter a _yeah, yeah_, and tries to put her mother's words out of her mind. They ring just a little too frighteningly true for her liking, and she doesn't want to think, even for a minute, about their ramifications, about the fact that, at some point in the future, she might end up suffering as a result of her choices, her continued dependence on her brother and no-one else. She doesn't want to have to consider ideas like that, not just now.

It's too difficult. Why should she be trying to change what she has? She may not have any friends who could be considered _a good example_, her brother may be a bad lot, but he does love her, and staying as she is now, where she knows she's wanted, well, it's…

…easy.

It's easy.

And she trusts him.

* * *

The beginning of the end- well, the first of many ends to come, anyhow- comes like a thief in the night, slipping by so subtly that Martina doesn't even notice it. Roger starts staying out later, longer, and more often. She doesn't think on it much. It's not, after all, particularly noticeable, not particularly _worth_ thinking on. It's just Roger, being Roger, going out, probably to the pub or wherever else he goes, doing whatever he does, that's all, and other things are going on in her life, things with friends and school, and occasionally family, things which occupy more prominent spaces in her mind.

There have been _incidents_, of course. Roger's gotten into trouble several times with her parents, and Martina's gotten into trouble for siding with him, and for not minding her own business- but it's all the usual stuff.

And so she completely misses any little hints, any little foreshadowing that comes her way, anything that might suggest perhaps that a storm is brewing. Not deliberately, mind, but she misses it all the same, and that is about to take its toll.

Martina's thirteen years old, and about to be faced with the biggest upheaval of her life so far.

* * *

It's nine at night, the house has been empty and silent for several hours, and Martina's lying on her bed, reading, taking advantage of the rare moment of serenity when the front door slams. Her father's furious voice bellows through the whole house, reverberating off the walls.

'That's it! I've had it! I've 'ad enough! No more chances- you've overstepped the line this time!'

Martina shuts her eyes, wishing she had some way of drowning out the noise. She was having such a lovely, quiet evening up 'til now.

'I didn't think even _you_ 'ad it in you ter go that far…'

'Look, I didn't plan for this to happen, _okay_?'

A second voice mingles with her father's shouts, and Martina sits up at once, heart pounding.

_Roger_.

An ominous feeling builds up inside her, a terrifying apprehension that something awful has happened.

It isn't as if Roger and her dad haven't argued before- it's a thrice weekly occurrence at least, usually being sparked by either Roger's refusal to get a job, his 'bad influence' over Martina or the enormous bills he dumps on his parents to take care of for him. She's head the _you waste all our money on booze/well you waste all our money in wagers/ well you should be supporting yourself at your age_ back-and-forth so many times, but this seems different somehow.

She gets up inhumanly quickly, the jolt making her dizzy, and tiptoes across the landing, craning her neck to see down the stairs. From her position, she can just make out the top of Roger's head, and her Dad from the shoulders down.

'Oh, you _never_ plan fer these things to 'appen, do you? It was the same last time- we had to shell out a fortune on bail because you decided ter steal those bloody stolen record players-'

'-I _said_ I was sorry about that!'

'-which you never _did_ pay us back for, did you?'

'And what was I supposed ter pay you back _with_?'

'What d'you mean, _what were you supposed ter pay us back with_- if you actually got a job and _contributed_, or at the very least stopped _wastin'_ your dole money on Scotch-'

'Oh, it all comes back to _that_, doesn't it?'

'Well, of _course_ it all comes back ter that- you've _just this second_ run up a three thousand pound tab, been arrested for non-payment _and_ I've 'ad ter bail you out _again_- and it's not even as if it's a one-off! You're constantly disgracin' us- I'm sick o' you tryin' ter ruin this family!'

'I've never tried to-'

'Oh, no? What about Martina, then? You've _poisoned_ that girl!'

Martina flinches. What? No! She wants to yell out, but she finds she's lost her voice, lost the ability to move so much as an inch. She just crouches there, a statue with an erratic heartbeat.

'How many times do I 'ave ter…that was an _accident!'_ Roger cries. 'I never intended to get her drunk!'

'I didn't necessarily mean literally- though you can't deny that either. You nearly killed 'er- and it doesn't matter what you _intended_- it's what _happened_ that counts. No, I'm talkin' about the way you're corruptin' 'er!'

Corrupt? A barely audible squeak escapes Martina's mouth. _Corrupt? I'm not corrupt! Am I?_

'All I've ever tried ter do is take care of 'er!'

'Oh, _yeah_, and what a wonderful job you've done, too, Roger, givin' her whiskey, teachin' her to be sulky and downright _disrespectful_ ter everyone she meets, deprivin' 'er of a normal childhood because you've dragged 'er into your world- into things she shouldn't know anythin' _about_ at 'er age!'

'Oh, and what about _y-_' Roger starts to say, but her Dad isn't done yet.

'Well, that's it! I've been sayin' for years you should be turfed out- I should've done it when you first 'ospitalised that child- as a matter o' fact, I should've done it the first time you got yerself landed in the nick- well, I'm bloody well gonna do it now! No more chances- yer mother and I aren't gonna fight yer battles for you anymore, we're not gonna pay for your mistakes, and you're not gonna make Martina suffer for them anymore either. Get out.'

A brief silence descends as the words sink in.

Martina feels as if she's become detached from her body and gone falling into a deep chasm, while at the same time being rooted to this spot on the floor, never to move again. Her mind's playing tricks. It has to be. She's misheard. It's the only logical explanation.

'Get _out_, Roger!' her Dad repeats. 'I don't care where you go, just _go- now._ You can take the rap fer yer _own_ mistakes from now on.'

No, she hasn't misheard. She's heard right.

But this can't be right. No! It's not right!

But it _is_. It _is_ right, and now Roger's coming up the stairs, looking defeated.

He pauses on the landing, giving her a sad look before carrying on into his bedroom.

Martina just sits there on the floor, shivering though she's not cold, trying to make some sense of this. Nothing comes to her mind. It's totally empty, totally disbelieving.

Seconds tick by. As if being pulled along by marionette strings, Martina drags herself up off the floor and across the hall.

She stands in the doorway of Roger's room as he packs, gripping the doorframe for support, her knees shaking so violently she feels she'll keel over if she doesn't. This isn't happening. It can't be. This is the stuff of nightmares- the sort from which you wake up with a scream, covered in sweat, and have to turn the light on to convince yourself they aren't real. It's her worst fear come to life. Roger's not going to be around anymore.

Without him, what is she? How will she cope? How will she _live_?

Her vocal chords are tangled up somewhere in the messy knot of her throat, along with the lump that's risen and the bile that's clawing its way up.

'Roger,' she croaks.

He stops what he's doing, rises from the floor and comes over to her.

' 'Tina,' he murmurs, pressing his nose into her hair, his own, now long and lank, falling round her head, mingling with her tresses, ginger with brown. 'I'm sorry I'm such a bad lot. I've ruined everythin'.'

'No,' Martina says with feeling. '_No_. You 'aven't. Don't go.'

'I don't get a say in this, pet.'

'Refuse to leave,' she insists, stubbornly clenching her fists. He pulls back to look at her, laughs ruefully at what he sees. Martina can't for the life of her see what there is to laugh about.

'That'll just make things worse.'

'I'll go with you, then.'

Roger runs a hand across his brow. 'Oh, 'Tina, 'Tina, don't do this…' he takes hold of her by the arms, lowering his face to her level, 'listen. Nothing's gonna change between you and me, I promise you. I won't be living in this house, that's all. I'm not leavin' the country, I'm not leavin' town, even. I'm just leavin' _this house._ And as soon as I find somewhere to live, I'll send you the address and the telephone number. We can write, we can talk, we'll see each other all the time- I give you me word.'

Writing, phoning and visiting- if she's lucky. If that's even possible. It's not enough. Roger's supposed to be there all the time, easily accessible. But what can she do? She's got no option but to keep a stiff upper lip, nod and say 'okay'.

'That's me brave girl.' Roger hugs her and she hugs back as tightly as she can, determined to make it count. After all, who knows how long it'll be before the next one?

It takes Roger all of ten minutes to get his stuff together, leaving behind, Martina can't help smiling as she notices, in spite of all this horror, all the rubbish in his room for his parents to sort out. He pulls his coat on, picks up his one small case, ruffles her hair before heading out of the room and toward the stairs.

Martina stays where she is. She doesn't follow him down- to hear the front door open and shut, knowing it's bearing her brother away, is bad enough, without having that image burnt onto her retinas as well.

She tries to think of something that'll make his going more bearable, making a tremendous effort to concentrate on the negatives, on how bad an influence he's always been, how he told her about things some people her age _still_ don't know about when she was _six_, when he let her have whiskey at nine and she ended up having her stomach pumped, but none of these things seem to matter in the slightest. All that matters is that he loves her, and she's being deprived of him.

She gives up on putting a lid on her agony and succumbs to a bout of throat-cutting, wrist-slashing, tablet-swallowing, stick-my-finger-in-an-electric socket despair.

It's certainly not the last time she'll feel like this.

* * *

Martina manages to pull herself together after about an hour, brushes tears from her face and walks slowly across the landing to her parents' room. She'd heard the front door slam a second time about twenty minutes ago, signalling her dad's exeunt- probably off to see his mates and lay down a few bets- and now, she thinks, she has a chance to get her mother alone.

And she'd better use it.

Her mam's sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her sewing up to the dim lamplight, a few stray tears of her own scattered across her face. The sight of them makes Martina hesitate, struggle to pull her unconcerned mask back up before she proceeds, and in the end she finds she can't. She goes as she is, creaking her way across the floor and seating herself next to her Mam.

'Martina,' she doesn't look at her, 'it's late.'

'Why didn't you stop him, Mam?' her voice trembles, and she realises as her mother's head snaps around towards her that she's startled her. She's never shown this much emotion in front of her- not for a very long time, anyway- despite the closer relationship they seemed to be starting to achieve. Matters of her heart were always put on layaway for Rog, her pains and joys shared with him alone. But for the first time in an aeon, Martina's incapable of acting detached. She's been insecure all her life, as far back as she can remember, but so long as Roger was around to fall back on, she's been able to rise above everything, to act like she's not afraid with the knowledge that she's got some protection, some care. But now Roger's been dynamited out of her life, and though he's promised to keep seeing her, she's still unsure how that'll pan out. She can't hold onto herself anymore; she lets her fears consume her and her walls come down in front of one of her parents.

'He's got a mind of 'is own, Martina,' her mother says softly, 'there's nothin' any of us could've done. He'd 'ave gone and done somethin' similar later, even if I _had_ talked 'im out of it this time around- and the same thing would've happened in the end. You know Roger, 'e can't seem to help being…' she pauses, sighs, puts her hands on Martina's shoulders.

Martina flinches at the contact. She's not used to physical displays of affection- not from _her_ anyway.

'I mean, the thing you 'ave ter understand is that…even before you were born, Roger…well, he was getting' up to all sorts o'…'

'Not _Rog_,' Martina cuts in, 'not 'im! _Dad!_'

Her mother falls silent.

'Why couldn't you 'ave stopped 'im kickin' Roger out? Couldn't you 'ave said somethin'…_anythin'_ ter make 'im change 'is mind?'

There's another long pause. Martina can feel herself breathing heavily, tensed in anticipation of some sort of answer,.

'I don't know if there was anythin' I _could_ 'ave said, love- yer Dad 'ad 'is mind made up, and maybe…' she trails off.

'What?' Martina demands. 'Maybe _what?_'

'Well, p'raps….p'raps it's for the best.'

Martina had thought it only happened in cliché novels, but now she actually sees everything flash red momentarily before her eyes.

She didn't just say that. She did _not_ just say that. Martina desperately hopes she heard wrong.

'_What?'_ she hisses.

'Look, I know you and Roger were close, Martina, but…you've got to understand, your brother is…well, he's reckless, isn't 'e? He's gotten us into a lot o' hot water lately, and we just can't afford to keep payin' for 'is mistakes. We're barely staying afloat as it is, and Roger's more than old enough to have to face up to responsibility- to pay his own debts…'

Of course it all makes sense. It's logical. It's practical. Martina can see that. It may even be reasonable- if it wasn't _her_ Roger her Mam was talking about. But it's _her_ Roger, her brother, and her bias clouds her mind, and her stubbornness consumes her, and her grief is such that the truth of the statement just makes her angrier.

'How can you sit there talkin' about _reckless?_' she snaps, the tears coming whether she wants them to or not. '_How_ can you say Dad's doin' the right thing when every other _week_ 'e piles up _gamblin' debts!_ _He's_ the one gettin' us into hot water! Get rid o' _him_ if you 'ave ter get rid o' someone!'

_'Martina,'_ her mother warns.

_'He's_ the one who's reckless!' Martina repeats, crying hysterically now. 'Not Roger. _Him!_'

Her Mam gets abruptly to her feet, attempting to assume a sterner parental role by towering over her. 'How can you speak about your father like that?'

Martina's having none of it. She's on her feet too, the instant her Mam shows signs of getting up. 'How can you speak about your _son_ like that?'

'You're a child, you don't know what you're talking about. One day you'll come to understand, Martina, that-'

'Oh, _understand_, will I? What'll I understand? Why me mother won't stand up for her own _son_, just because 'e 'appens to slip up now and then, but she'll defend to the death that heartless _bastard_-'

_'Martina!_'

'-who wastes more o' our money than Rog ever did, and why she works all the hours God sends and even takes in extra bloody work-'

'Don't you dare swear at me, young l-'

'-to make sure 'e doesn't have to face up to his own responsibility and get 'imself out o' trouble, but'll let him turn around and chuck someone else out for doin' the same sort o' thing, like the _bloody_ hypocrite he is-'

'Martina, just _stop it!_' her mother shrieks, losing it for the first time in who knows how long. 'Don't you think this is hard enough for me as it is, without you throwin' a tantrum about it?'

Throwing a tantrum. That's all she thinks she's doing. She just doesn't get it. She's the one who doesn't understand- doesn't understand that she and Dad have effectively sentenced Martina's one and only shred of happiness, of comfort, of security to death.

Doesn't understand the immense, intense pain that's ripping through Martina even as they speak. All the respect she's been developing towards her mother- the almost-closeness and semi-bond they've been working towards- vanishes at once in a puff of smoke. Martina will never forgive her for this, she thinks. Not ever. Never. Not in a million years.

She just glares and fumes, unable to process another word, her fury swirling so fast it's disorienting her.

'Martina, go away.'

Now _there's_ an idea. She leaves the room, slamming the door. Oh, she'll go away. She'd go all the way away, if she could, if she were old enough, if she knew what to do. She'd keep going away until she'd gone right out the door and to wherever Roger may be. But she's got to stay- the fact remains that she wouldn't know the first thing about what to do if she tried to leave home, and anyhow, Roger's given her his word he'll send her his new address and telephone number, once he's got a new address and number to send. She can't just run off, or they'd never reach her, and then she may _never_ see Rog again.

She settles for storming down the stairs instead, heading into the kitchen with the intent of making herself a cuppa and slamming mugs around in the process.

She runs into her dad at the bottom of the staircase, home incredibly early for him. She blocks his path for a few moments, just staring at him with seething hatred.

'What do _you_ want?'

She says nothing.

'Martina, get out of the way.' He pushes her to one side, heads up the steps.

Martina goes into the kitchen, makes herself her promised cup of tea and cries into it rather than drinking it.

* * *

**Poor little Martina. I just want to shake her sometimes, she's so obtuse. She doesn't see what's right in front of her face. I know this is from her point of view, but I've tried to leave enough evidence in there to suggest that what Martina sees isn't necessarily what's actually going on. **

**Yeah this first part doesn't have much of her DHSS-ness in it, but as we go she'll be working towards getting that job, possibly meeting people from the show, to her life resembling that above excerpt, et cetera. **

**Stay tuned. And keep an eye on the cover- it will change every chapter. I've found some pics that look exactly how I imagine Martina to look at different ages. **


	2. Part Two: 1972-1976

**Okay, then, part two. More warnings: onset of dysthymia, low self-esteem, mentions of underage drinking and underage sex, alcohol abuse, deliberate repetition, foreshadowing and probably a fair few other things.**

**I also warn you that Martina's quite contradictory in this section, changes her mind about things and then changes it again, because she's a) growing up and going through her teenage years when everything's a bit harder anyway, and b) very confused about a lot of things. Her mind is very messed up. **

* * *

**Part Two**

**1972-1976**

'Have they 'ad a go at me old room yet?' Roger asks.

Martina shakes her head, idly stirring another lump of sugar into her coffee. It's gone cold and she's not really that interested in drinking it, but he's bought it for her so she has to at least pretend. They can't meet at home, not anymore, but Rog has been true to his word, has made sure they'll keep in touch- turned up to pick her up from school six days after he'd left- and they've gone straight to the nearest café to talk for as long as they like.

Roger snorts, checks in his own cup and, seeing there's not much left in it, waves a waitress over and orders another one. The woman flashes him a smile, baring a mouth full of crooked teeth, and Rog slips what looks suspiciously like a phone number into her apron pocket as she departs with their crockery.

'Sweet girl, that. What were we talkin' about?'

'Yer room at home.'

'Oh, yeah.' Rog sits back in his chair. 'Bet they don't dare go near it, do they?'

'They tried. Took in one breath o' the air in there and talked about gettin' it sterilised.'

Roger tips back his head and laughs. Martina joins in, a little, but the memory's more painful to her than it is amusing. She concentrates her attention on her brother's face instead, trying to commit to memory all the lines that scrawl across it when he scrunches it up with laughter. It's only been a week since he moved out (moved out, tuh. Got _thrown_ out more like) but she's missed him something awful during that time. The waitress returns with their coffee, murmurs an _I get off at six_ to Roger and disappears again. The grin remains on Roger's face, but it's different somehow.

Martina makes a face and crumbles a bit of sugar between her fingers. 'Can you _afford_ to be goin' out with women?'

'I can afford anythin' I like. I've still got me Social Security.'

'But you 'ave ter pay _rent_ now,' Martina says, concerned. 'And you 'ave ter pay for food, and all yer bills, and…'

'Did I mention you can claim for that stuff? I'll make do.' He reaches over to mess up her hair. 'Don't tell me you're goin' responsible.'

She snickers. 'You bad influence, you. I'm just worried about you is all.'

'You don't have to be, pet. I'm doin' all right, really. And if it _does_ get too rough,' he teases, 'I can always get Giselle to take me in as her kept man.'

She assumes by 'Giselle' he means the waitress. She makes another face.

'Don't look like that, 'Tina. She's a great girl. Who knows- she might be your sister one day.'

'Ugh. I hope not.'

'Why not?'

Martina takes a mouthful of coffee. 'She keeps _smilin'_. She's done nothin' but smile since we came in 'ere.'

'People do, you know.'

'That much? It's unnatural. Me jaw aches just lookin' at it.'

'Maybe you should practise more, Miss Frosty-Face.'

'What 'ave I got ter smile about?'

'Me.' Roger takes her hand, 'You've got me. I might be a bad influence, but you've still got me.'

Martina lets her face soften, turns up the corners of her mouth to please him. 'Yeah.'

They sit back again, and she picks up her cup, sipping. 'When am I gonna get one o' them, anyway?'

'One of what? A girl, you mean?'

She aims a kick at him.

'I _meant_ yer phone number. You promised it to me- _and_ your address, remember? I 'aven't seen it yet, and you've already given it to someone else.'

'I haven't forgotten you, pet, don't panic.' He slides a hand into his coat, brings out a considerably larger, more neatly folded piece of paper than the one he gave to the waitress. 'Everything you need's on there. Address, phone, note reading _I miss you Martina_, the lot.'

Martina takes it, holding it carefully in her hand as if it's a holy relic she's just been given, not a set of contact details. Something inside her feels lighter, less dense. She's got a solid, physical link to Roger now, and a new path of certainty opens up before her. The not knowing where he was had knotted up her guts, but know she's got this, she feels herself untwist, and allows herself to relax for the first time in a week.

'So, this Giselle,' she says conversationally, looking evilly at Roger, does she _know_ you're a bad lot?'

Roger looks embarrassed, and Martina laughs.

* * *

'You got home a bit late today.'

Martina doesn't acknowledge this remark.

Her mother persists, regardless. 'Did they keep you back after school?'

'No.'

'Where did you go?'

'Nowhere.'

'What did you do, then?'

'Nothing.'

Her mam's been trying, ever since the night Rog left, to connect with her again. Martina doesn't know whether it's because she's now the only child in the house, and her mother's feeling a bit on the empty nest side, or because she feels guilty about how Rog turned out and suddenly wants to make a fresh start with Martina or what, but it's not going to make the slightest difference. She's not speaking to her. She's going to stay _out of the way_, like she's always being told to do, and no amount of pretending to want her around is going to make her start acting like the perfect daughter. First her parents don't want her, then they throw out of the house the one person who _does_. She wants nothing to do with them, other than the bare minimum association necessary to be provided with the food and shelter she needs to survive- and as soon as she comes of age she's going to leave home and find a way of providing all that for herself.

Her heart's hardened just a little bit more.

And so life goes on.

* * *

Martina's never been what you might call an 'on the rails' type of girl, but when she turns fourteen, she and the rails say goodbye and completely part company. School becomes a low priority- she no longer listens, let alone does much in the way of work, opposes authority and gets herself in trouble frequently, because she can no longer care less about the consequences. She makes friends again, hangs around with a mismatched group of peers who spend their time doing very little and antagonising almost everyone, and she enjoys herself a little, though she never trusts any of them. Never even grows to _like_ any of them, really, apart from as people to fritter away time with, and they're not always particularly kind to her, but she stays with them anyhow, just because she supposes it's better than being one hundred per cent alone.

On most days she's cold and aloof toward her parents, exchanging very few words with them within a day, spending most of the time she's at home upstairs in her room, away from them.

She still sees Roger, of course. As often as she can, for as _long_ as she can, and if something seems to clash with one of her arranged meetings with him, she drops it in favour of her brother. She's never seen his new flat, never seen with her own eyes how he's living, now that he's away from home and trying to get by on his own, but they still manage to see a great deal of each other in other locations- parks, cafés, outside her school, anywhere they can get away to for a few hours. When they can't see each other, they phone, and when Martina gets banned from using the phone for running up the bill, or Roger gets cut off for not paying his, she writes to him. And, though it isn't quite the same, though she still passes his old bedroom with a pang, it's all right. It works, what they have. She's reasonably pleased with their routine.

But apart from that, there still isn't much for her to smile about. Her life's stable, but that's about it. And every so often, something will happen- or sometimes it won't, nothing will have changed at all, not even a little- and Martina will just raise her eyes to the sky and think _why?_

She's used to disappointment. It's been a constant companion in her life, whether she's wanted it there or not, tagging along behind her like some mangy mongrel dog she can't shake off no matter how hard she tries, and by now, she tells herself, she should be used to it.

She's not. Every day she harbours just a little hope that somehow, things'll get better. If she feels up to it, she'll try to orchestrate some kind of change. And every day, when nothing _does_ get better, when nothing happens, when life just drones on with its usual monotony, she slides down into her usual, dissatisfied shell and tells herself not to hope anymore. Even on days when everything's fairly good, when nothing's going wrong, when people are nice to her, when she and Rog have just had a good old laugh, somewhere in the background, she feels a black cloud just waiting to creep back out and take its usual position hovering over her life.

Some days, no matter how many pleasant things have happened, she sits there and finds herself wondering _what's the point_? She finds she can't sleep. She paces, but that's too tiring.

She tries to douse these thoughts. When this seems in danger of happening she has a go at doing her homework, some chores, starting a letter, but it all feels like too much, and she can't dredge up enough motivation to get anything done. Her friends arrange various activities, and more often than not she excuses herself, gets out of it by pretending to be sick, just because _it's too much hassle_ trying to do anything, to go anywhere, to have to interact with people.

It's too much work, trying to live. Sometimes she just gives up, just _exists_ instead.

And the worst thing is, while she knows it's not right to feel like this, that most people feel happy for more than just a few days at a stretch at most, she doesn't tell anyone about it, doesn't even try to look into it.

Maybe she's just not worthy of a lot of happiness. Maybe a small amount every now and again is all she's capable of handling. Maybe it's just an inherent trait, ingrained into her to be miserable.

Maybe that's just who she is.

So Martina does what Martina does best. She grits her teeth, groans and grumbles and sets about trying to make the most of things, putting up with the anguish, ignoring it, for want of a solution to it.

What more can she do, anyway?

* * *

At three o'clock on Christmas morning, a tapping comes at Martina's window. She shoots up in bed, casting around for the nearest thing she can use as a weapon, only to see Roger's face leering in at her from outside.

Martina scrambles up and runs to open the window.

'Rog! What are you- how'd you get up here?'

He shrugs. 'Ladder.'

Martina rolls her eyes at his insouciance. 'Get inside.'

He does so, transposing himself from the exterior of her house to inside her bedroom in one quick, agile movement. He's wearing a stupid piece of tinsel around his head. Martina knocks it off.

'It's too early to be festive.'

'I thought we could have our own celebration before everyone gets up,' Rog says, 'and before Mam and Dad drag you out the house to go and visit Granny.'

'Ugh.' Martina's mouth twists. It's the same every year- Mr. and Mrs. McKenna take them to see one or other of their grandparents rather than preparing any sort of celebration themselves, and on the whole nobody enjoys the occasion. Martina and Rog normally keep together and amuse themselves (generally by making fun of their grandparents while no-one's looking). Martina's been dreading being alone, having to spend her first Christmas without her brother. Having him here now sends a ripple of relief through her. She can get through the rest of the day if she has the memory of this morning to keep her going.

Roger produces a badly-wrapped package (Martina can't tell in the near-dark, but it feels like newspaper covering the contents) from inside his jacket and hands it over.

'Feliz Navidad!'

'What?'

'Well, you're the one doin' Spanish at school.'

'_French_, pillock. _And _ I'm failin' it.'

Roger laughs and presses the package more firmly into her hand. Martina fumbles around until she finds the switch for her bedside lamp.

It _is_ wrapped in newspaper. It's also quite big, considering.

'Oh, Rog. You can't afford it.'

'No, I can't. That's why I didn't buy it.'

Martina looks at him in horror.

'I didn't nick it, pet. I haven't sunk _that_ low…_yet.'_

She just hopes he doesn't mean that.

'Oh, just open it.'

She does, and is rather surprised by what she sees. It's a scarf. She raises an eyebrow.

'You don't knit!'

'Giselle does. I asked her to make it a while back, so technically you should be thankin' 'er, but…well, it's the thought that counts, eh?'

'So you _are_ seein' Giselle, then?'

'Well. Was.'

'Was? What 'appened?'

Roger doesn't look in the slightest bit upset. 'Ah, well. She discovered I was a bad lot, didn't she?'

'Oh. Sorry.' Martina's not sure what else she can say.

'Not 'alf as much as I am. Ah well.' He flops onto her bed. 'Not much we can do about it now. I got a scarf out of it fer you.'

His unconcerned attitude about the whole issue makes Martina just a little uncomfortable, but she ignores the feeling and focuses on the positives- the fact that Roger has gone out of his way to see her on Christmas day. That cancels out the negatives in her mind. It's enough to help her forget, for now.

Martina has something for him, too, and she bites her tongue as he opens it, assaulted with a rush of worries that he'll think it's ridiculous, that he won't want it.

Roger chortles at her handiwork- it's almost as terribly-wrapped as his was, only with _real_ wrapping paper- and as he tears said paper away, an enormous grin crosses his face.

It's a photograph of the two of them. Martina can't remember it being taken, but from the looks of it, it was when she was about eight. She's smiling with her mouth closed, as she tends to do, her chin on Roger's shoulder, and half Roger's face is missing from the picture- it does appear as if, perhaps, he's held a camera up in front of both their faces and snapped it himself. Not the best photo the world has ever seen, she must admit, but when she'd found it, daring herself one boring, lonesome day to have a snoop through everything he'd left behind in his room, she'd immediately gone looking for a frame.

Martina gauges his reaction with anxiety. It'd seemed like a good idea at the time, but even now she's not sure- should she have gotten him something else?

'Aw, pet,' says Roger, and her heart jumps. 'That's _lovely_, 'Tina, really _lovely.'_

Martina's heartbeat settles down. 'You like it, then?'

'What d'you mean, _do I like it?_ Course I do, sweetheart!' he grabs her off the bed and wraps her in a hug. 'It'll 'ave pride o' place on me mantel.'

Martina lets the last of her worries about the present abate. Why was she doing that anyway? This is _her brother_ here- he'd like whatever she'd given him, _because it was from her_. She always lets herself get unnecessarily worked up like this, constantly feels like she's no good at pleasing anyone, that- _no_, she thinks, putting those thoughts out of her mind. She's not going to wallow in negativity today. It's Christmas, and Roger's here, and she's going to be happy for at least a few hours, even if it kills her.

'Now, what else can we do to make this Christmas complete?' Roger asks- clearly rhetorically, so she doesn't try to respond- and brings a slender bottle out from his never-ending coat pockets.

Martina frowns. 'I'm not 'avin' whiskey, if that's what you're getting' at.' It wasn't the ordinary whiskey that caused all that trouble when she was nine, but she can't disconnect it from the drunken incident, and she'd rather stay away from it all the same. True, she's tried it again on occasion, in careful moderation, but she's rather lost the taste for it.

Roger looks scandalised, and more than a tad hurt. The pain in his eyes makes Martina shudder, and she regrets having voiced that thought aloud. She jokes enough about him being a bad lot, a bad influence, but she never wants him to think she means it, think she doesn't trust him. He may be a bit off the rails, but his faults aren't his fault, not really. He has a problem, and he tries so hard to overcome it and be what she needs that if he gets it wrong sometimes, well, she's willing to forgive him that. And she doesn't want him to think he's doing her harm and go away in some pathetically noble attempt to 'improve her life'- she couldn't cope if he did.

She hastily tries to rectify the situation she's created, snatching the bottle from his hands and realising her mistake instantly.

It's not whiskey. It's champagne. She grins, and the smile returns to Roger's face.

'Well, they never even let you 'ave a taste anymore, do they?'

It's true, since that incident, despite the fact that it was five years ago and hasn't been repeated since, Martina's no longer allowed to have a sip of any form of alcohol on any special occasion, lest she 'endanger herself' again.

It's probably even more irresponsible of Roger to be bringing it to her now, therefore, but she can't really bring herself to care.

Champagne doesn't seem particularly Christmassy to her, but if it's just for the sake of having a celebration, it'll do- and just being able to be with her brother on this of all days is the perfect sort of thing to celebrate in her eyes.

Rog takes it back from her, shakes it up a little and prepares to open it, and Martina's head whirls toward the door as the cork comes out with a _pop_, afraid her parents might be woken by the noise.

She waits for a moment. She can't hear anything out on the landing. They must be all right.

She and Roger smirk like conspirators, just as they always have, and then Rog turns to her dressing table and starts sweeping his eyes over the surface.

'You wouldn't 'ave any glasses, would you?'

She scoffs. 'Why would I 'ave glasses in 'ere?'

'Cups, then?'

She scoffs again.

'Ah well,' Roger says cheerily, passing the bottle to her by the neck. 'We'll make do without. Cheers, pet!'

Martina stops after a sip. She's learned her lesson on that front.

Roger finishes the bottle.

* * *

Martina's most recent school report is disappointing, to put it mildly. Every single comment references her appalling attitude. Her marks have plummeted. Not that she cares anymore. It's not as if she's going to get a good job at the end of all this anyway- that belief is set in stone, and she stubbornly refuses to accept the possibility that she could change that- and it's not as if she wants to impress her parents, either. They'll only start thinking about her contributing money to their household if she does well- something which she has no intention of doing- and apart from that, neither will care much at all.

Her mam still asks to see the report, though, and Martina nonchalantly paper-aeroplanes it over to her.

She makes tutting noises as she reads it, and when she's finished, she slaps it down and demands _did you not try at all?_

'Not really,' Martina answers. No point in lying, after all.

'I don't know why I bother,' Martina's mother says, tossing the school report back across the table.

'You don't,' says Martina, and leaves the room.

* * *

It's this year that Martina runs away from home for the first time. She's to do it four times in her life, each for both different and the same reasons at once- different little triggers, but the same underlying reason that her parents are uncaring and don't love her and she wants to go to Roger.

The first three times, she doesn't make it far, though.

This time, in fact, she only gets to the end of the street.

She hasn't even got a bag or anything, and she realises when she's no more than three steps out the door that it's a stupid idea and she'll never pull it off, but she goes a bit further out of pure, unadulterated stubbornness.

She lets out a breath, watching it turn into clouds before her face. It's February, and she hasn't even got a coat.

Well, _that_ was smart thinking, wasn't it?

* * *

Martina tries to open and close the front door very quietly, keeping one arm round herself as she shivers.

'Deigned to come back, 'ave you?' comes her father's voice. 'I just hope you're sorry.'

'No,' says Martina, and pushes past him. She's not. He'd been slagging off Roger, that's what'd triggered her to go, and she doesn't feel the slightest remorse for turning round and calling him a wastrel and going on about his gambling problem before storming out.

'Well now you're back in the house, you are not to leave it- except for school- for the rest of the week. Go upstairs.'

Martina internally rages the whole way up to her bedroom- she's got plans with Roger tomorrow, and her father's making her stay in this miserable slammer.

Bastard.

She should have kept walking. Sod her coat.

* * *

_Dear Roger,_

_Well, I'll admit I never liked Giselle, but you seem to, so I'm happy for you, I suppose. Be a bit more careful this time around. She probably won't give you another chance if you mess it up this time._

_I would say things my end are fine, but somehow I don't feel they are. _

_Do you ever get the feeling you're just sort of falling down a great black hole? Because I do quite a lot. Sometimes I don't even want to get up, but I have to. Is that normal, Rog? I see other people and I wonder if they sometimes feel like that too. Do they? Or is it just something wrong with me?_

_Roger, I'm scared sometimes. I'm scared about the way I think. Sometimes I feel like nothing good is ever going to happen to me, and I just__ can't be bothered __to fix that. Other people are making plans and things, and I'm not. And I don't just mean casual plans, although sometimes I don't feel like going out, even if I was looking forward to something the day before. I mean the future-type plans. I don't have any. I try to make them, sometimes, but then I just feel like it's all hopeless. _

_It's just sometimes, Rog, I feel like I'm not worth anything at all, and I wish I didn't, but I can't change that, and I don't just mean because of what Mam and Dad said when I was little (but that is probably a part of it). I just mean in general, you know. I just feel so miserable I can't bear it. _

_Not all the time. Sometimes I __am__ okay. But then sometimes I'm not. Do you understand what I'm saying? _

_I don't even know how to describe it, really. I've never told anyone (who have I got to tell? Not Mam and Dad, never, and most of my friends don't really know me that well, so that just leaves you.)_

_I just feel…sort of empty, a lot of the time._

_And I don't know what to do about that. Got any ideas? _

_Love,_

_Martina_

* * *

'Did you send me a letter the other day?' Roger's voice is crackly, and Martina presses the receiver harder into her ear to try and hear him better.

'Yeah,' she replies, the fingers of her free hand clenching around the material of her school shirt, twisting one of the buttons until it nearly comes off. Martina has no idea what he's about to say. She dreads to think. She'd been almost in tears when she'd written that letter, at the height of one of her moods, and she'd felt better, sort of, churning out her feelings onto a page. But she's not feeling like that presently, she's all right today, as far as she goes, and she sincerely regrets having posted it. He's going to think she's mad, or worse. He's going to feel overly sympathetic, and she doesn't want that right now.

'Ah, yeah, well…' Roger begins awkwardly, 'about that letter, 'Tina…'

'Look,' she starts to protest, 'when I wrote that, I was…'

'Thing is, I may 'ave been a bit clumsy when I got the post- I spilt a bottle of Longrow over it. Can't read a single bloody word now. Sorry, love. What was it you wanted ter say?'

The surprise and relief are overwhelming, and Martina half-laughs, twisting her hand through her hair.

'Oh, nothin' important,' she says, sighing. 'Nothin' important.'

And she hangs up.

* * *

Age fifteen, for Martina, is all about experimenting- some of her experiments harmless, others less so. She really just wants to see what options are out there, to see what works. She's feeling a little bit more determined this year, wants to make _something_ happen, no matter how insignificant (because nothing significant will work, she has to face up to that. Might as well make the little things count.)

She changes her hairstyle seven times in six months. Valerie Jacobs in the form above offers her a drag on something she's not so sure is a normal cigarette, but she accepts it and finds herself feeling sick for the rest of the day. She lets Douglas Brenshaw from her English class put his hand up her skirt, decides she likes it when he kisses her and for the best part of three months they meet in secret in the most clichéd of places- behind the bicycle shed. That is, until she catches him snogging a blonde girl with an enormous chest, and ends things officially by smacking him in the face with her maths book (killing two birds with one stone- she hates that book, has been looking for an excuse to abuse it. She never did properly get the hang of arithmetic).

As always, it's Roger who comes in to the school to listen to the furious rants of the headmaster and the teachers, and the parents of her ex-sort-of-boyfriend. He plays his part well, keeping a stern face as he listens, while Martina sits sullenly beside him, occasionally turning to her to ask if the allegations are true.

'You really are thick sometimes, 'Tina,' he says as they walk out of the gates, Martina having gotten away with her fifth expulsion warning and about a billion years of detentions.

She turns to look at him. 'Are you goin' responsible on me?'

'Responsible? Me? _Never!_'

'Good. I was gettin' worried there.'

'But you _are_ thick, pet.'

'Oh, yeah? How so?'

'You don't hit a bloke in the face. That's just _askin'_ ter get in trouble. You injure 'im in the dangly bits. That way it hurts more, he's too embarrassed to say anythin' to anyone, and if you're lucky, he'll never be physically able to cheat on you again.'

Martina throws back her head and laughs loudly. 'You're an evil bastard, Rog.'

'Yeah, I am. I am. And a-'

'Bad influence on impressionable minds!' they crow together, laughing.

The words are a joke to her. She's heard them so often they no longer mean anything. She doesn't stop to think about their consequences, about the gravity of their truth. She's fifteen and rebellious, and being with Rog gives her a sense of freedom, and she doesn't even consider how his influence might affect her later in life, how he might be screwing her up.

It doesn't matter to her. Not now. She's already screwed up, she thinks, and at least when she messes up with Roger around, it's a little more bearable than if she were to mess things up on her own.

* * *

Martina is much better prepared when she storms out of her house the second time. She's got a jacket, she's got the scarf Roger gave her, she's got money- she could maybe survive if she _did_ decide to just walk on forever. Well, for a little while, at least.

She gets about two blocks away and it starts to rain.

_Oh, thank you very much_.

She goes back home and stomps up the stairs before anyone can order her to.

* * *

'Sometimes, Miss McKenna, I'm disgusted by your total apathy towards your schoolwork,' her English teacher says one day, handing back an essay that scored eleven per cent with an appalled scowl. 'Anyone can see you're a bright girl- and yet you deliberately choose to squander your talents and to not put any effort in- if you keep up like this, you'll be sweepin' floors for a livin'.'

Martina shrugs. 'Yeah, probably.'

'Well, don't you _want_ a decent future?'

'Of course I _want_ one,' Martina says, annoyed, 'but I won't get it.'

'Well not if you don't even _try_, no.'

'Even so.'

Her teacher purses her lips, visibly about to scold her for speaking to her like that, but all of a sudden changes her demeanour, moves closer to her.

'Is everything all right at home…_dear_?'

Oh, here we go. Well, no, if she _has_ to know, it's not- it never has been. But that is _none of her business_, and if she thinks Martina's going to start talking about her personal life, especially in class, where other people are bound to hear, well, she's got another thing coming.

'I don't see why that matters,' she settles for saying.

'It matters, _madam_, because I am just _tryin'_ to understand what might be keeping you from achieving your full potential!'

'What potential?' Martina mutters. She doesn't intend to be heard, but the woman picks up on it nonetheless.

'Well, _miss_, if that's your attitude, I'm not going to try to help you.'

'Oh, that was 'elp, was it?'

She acts as if she hasn't heard, but Martina sees her go redder. 'Go on, then, fail if you like! Make absolutely nothing o' yourself- you seem to be _determined_ to do so. I wash me 'ands o' you.'

Martina stews and seethes about it all for the rest of the lesson. She's not _determined_ to make nothing of herself, that's just what's going to happen, and she knows it. She's just realistic, that's all. She doesn't need to start being analysed by some ignoramus who thinks that having a couple of teaching qualifications gives her the right to start poking into Martina's private affairs, and then turning around and telling her it's her own fault she's doing badly.

Well she _knows that_. She could have gotten better marks. But what would it have mattered? It's not as if anyone would have wanted her for a good job anyway. She's not the sort of person people want.

She's still muttering angrily to herself when they're all dismissed, grabs her coat off the hook in the hall so roughly a couple of the seams under the right arm go, and walks out into the cold, her teeth crunching together in her fury.

'Martina!'

She pauses. She knows that voice. And it's not a welcome one.

Monica, her best friend when she was six, is hurrying over to her, scarf flung hastily around her shoulders.

Martina bristles. '_Yes_?'

She still hasn't forgiven her for their fight when they were younger, not that she completely remembers what it was even _about_. She's got no interest in renewing any sort of friendship, no matter what it was that broke them apart in the first place. They haven't even _spoken_ since they were eight, when Martina first mastered the concept of sarcasm and used her as her guinea pig, snidely insulting her over and over until she'd completely damaged any chance of a reconciliation, haven't even interacted enough to exchange dirty looks since they were about ten (Martina had, at that time, been considering making amends, and quickly changed her mind).

Monica looks like she's not quite sure how to act. Martina doesn't blame her, really.

'I couldn't 'elp noticin' what you were sayin' in there.'

'Go on.' Oh, so she's come to put her down further, has she? Well, she might as well get it over with. Then, at least, Martina can be free to go home and wallow in peace, without someone following her demanding she listen to what they have to say.

'Look, I know we 'aven't exactly been the best o' friends, but…'

'You're tellin' _me_,' Martina interjects.

'But thing is, well…was the gist of what you were sayin' to Miss in there that you think you 'aven't got a hope?'

'And if it was? What's that got ter do with you?'

'I just think that's terrible, Martina, that you're so down on yourself. I mean…' Monica wrings one of her mittens between her hands, 'well, I just think that's awful, is all. And I know…I know we're not…I know we don't…but anyway, if you ever want to talk about it or anythin'…'

_Oh. _ Martina had been anticipating some sort of comment about what a bad person she is, about what a cow she is, something she already knew, and could put up with. This is worse than that by far.

She's being _pitied_. Somebody she loathes feels _sorry_ for her. Martina feels sick to her stomach.

'What do you say? We could be friends again, I could help you…'

'I don't _need_ your pity!' Martina snaps. Oh, this isn't on. This just isn't on. She may feel incredibly down at times, she may be a pessimist nearly _all_ the time, she may not feel there's anything to be gained from trying at school, or trying to make things right with her parents, or trying to reconcile with those she's hurt, or who have hurt her, she may have trust issues and self-worth issues, and she may like to complain about the unjust mess that is her life, but one thing she absolutely _does not want_ is to be treated like a charity case because of it. She _does not want_ pretend sympathy, _does not want_ people thinking she's some sort of worthy cause, some poor child who needs to be patronised because _all is not well with her_.

She clenches her fists and stuffs them into her coat pockets, wondering if it's at all possible to say anything else without erupting.

'I just thought-'

'Oh, _you just thought_, did yer? Well forget it, love! Forget whatever you _just thought_, and leave me alone!'

'I was just try-' Monica tries one final time, but Martina unleashes the most furious glare she has in her repertoire.

'I _don't-need-your-pity_,' she repeats coldly, enunciating every word very slowly, and then, before the girl can get another word out, she turns on her heel and walks away with a determined stride, not looking over her shoulder, not bothering to check if she's being followed.

This is a new low. She must have hit some sort of rock-bottom. Yes, she's unhappy with her lot in life for the most part. Yes, sometimes she wakes up wishing she hadn't woken up at all. Yes, she has strange bouts of misery and hopelessness, which will disappear for a while and then rear their head again, and yes, she'll often complain about all this.

Yes, she'll complain to Roger, and he'll comfort her, but that's different. He loves her. He cares for her.

And yes, _yes_, she sometimes she feels unworthy of…well, nearly everything.

But no, no, _no_, she has never _ever _felt _so_ pathetic, _so_ useless, so _weak_ that she needs people to start looking down on her because of it, to treat her like she can't cope.

She might hate it all, but she does cope. She has _been_ coping. She's coped through the lowest of lows- when she found out she was an unwanted accident, when Roger was kicked out, and all the times in between. And she's survived near financial ruin in her household, she's survived fights and upheavals and a stomach-pumping. She doesn't necessarily _feel_ all that strong, but if she can manage that, well, she's not _weak_. She's definitely not some pitiful creature that needs to be thrown a bone.

_Right_, she decides, slamming open the front gate and slumping down on the doorstep. That's it. No matter what fate throws at her, she's going to rise above it. She's going to be strong no matter _how_ hopeless things may seem- or she'll at least make her best shot at it.

She sits on the step in front of her house, the rain drizzling down and little spots of it getting the parts of her the roof's not _quite_ big enough to protect, and just thinks about it. _Something's_ got to give, because the way her life's going, she'll soon be seen as little more than a beggar needing support. She hasn't tried in so many things, because a possible chance of success, of happiness, hasn't been enough motivation, not when everything she _does_ have a go at for that reason collapses in on herself.

But she _is_ motivated by her own anger. They can't treat her like that. She can take the insults and the dislike and the annoyance and the disgust. She can take being told to _get out of the way_ by her parents, and that she's a disappointment by her teachers, and that she's a frosty-faced cow by her peers. But she can't take this. And she won't. She's going to have another go at making her life better, _just to show them_.

Because she's decided to find a way, somehow, some day, to ensure that no-one, but no-one will mess with Martina McKenna. Not now, not ever. Even if she has to fight with herself to get out of this slump, she'll try.

She may not be the happiest of souls, nor the most optimistic. But she _will not be pitied_.

* * *

Life goes on.

Martina still wakes up feeling miserable a lot of the time; she 'leaves home' one more time and stays out two hours this time, sitting in a café fuming before remembering her pact to make everything better just to spite those would-be pity merchants and coming back again. She tries to pay attention at school, gets through her exams feeling…well, as she usually does, that she hasn't gone all that well, but she actually has a go at answering most of the questions, just to aid her cause. She's _trying_ to do something; she _wants_ to do something in her life, to make it just a little different _somehow_, but she doesn't seem to be getting the breaks. No opportunity comes along, no chance to suddenly show the world she can fight back, that she's strong, that she can handle things on her own, and so she gets through each day just wondering what she should be doing to make those doorways open up.

And then, one day, something happens. Her mother comes into her room uninvited, and starts prattling on about Martina's _future_, about how now she's older, she's going to have to start planning ahead for what she wants to do, to start preparing and getting on the ladder to success, some sort of rubbish like that.

Martina's not that simple. All this just _happens_ to occur no more than two weeks after the results of her O-Levels arrive, and, by some miracle, she's scraped passes in all of them- how she's still not sure. She didn't so much as look at a book- not one related to her courses, anyway. All of a sudden, now it appears she can go on to do her A-levels, her parents have taken an unprecedented interest in her. She's gone from being that unwanted daughter, hovering around, causing problems just by existing, to someone with potential, someone who might be able to get a good career and better her life, and, by extension, better _their_ lives.

They both start initiating conversations with her when they pass her on the stairs, rather than just telling her to _get out of the way_. They both start turning up in her room to 'have a little chat', and Martina thinks about buying a lock for her door. They both start asking about the sorts of things she enjoys, and what sort of thing she might like to do for work.

It's all about them, of course. Martina remembers that conversation she overheard when she was six with total clarity, remembers how they'd briefly mentioned that, although she was unwanted, they might be able to end up _making something useful _out of her. And that's exactly what they're doing, now she seems to be reaching a _useful_ age.

She ignores what they say, at first, singing songs in her head while they prattle on, letting the words completely drift over her unheard- after all, why should she want to do them any good? She has no respect for them, none whatsoever, nor their petty problems. If her Dad wants to squander all his money on gambling, that's his own fault, and _she's_ not going to help pay his bills.

'Now that you're getting older you need to start thinkin' about your future,' her father says, he and her Mam trying to sit her down for a _serious talk_, 'how you're gonna contribute to society and make yourself useful…'

'Useful?' Martina scoffs. 'Like you, you mean?'

He narrows his eyes. 'Go upstairs.'

* * *

About an hour later they call her back down.

'Are you ready to have a sensible conversation about this?'

'No.'

Her mother groans and her father rakes his hand through his hair.

'Do we deserve this attitude? I don't know what we did to end up with a daughter like you.'

'I've got a pamphlet from school which explains how-'

'-Get back upstairs.'

* * *

It's sort of fun, mocking them, deliberately being obtuse.

But one morning, while her mother's nattering on, something clicks in Martina's mind. She's long since stopped caring about how much attention she gets from her parents- she doesn't need them, she has Roger, after all- but a sentence forms in her brain and sticks there. _I could get their approval._

She's never had their approval for anything. She's never had the approval of very many people, and hasn't sought it, aiming relatively low all her life. She doesn't see the point in bothering, when Roger's approval is free, when there's nothing she can do to disgust him, when he's seemingly all she needs. But the idea of being approved of, of being liked suddenly attracts her. It isn't that she hasn't tried before- nearly two years of evenings sewing with her Mam were completely wasted in that endeavour. But now, after her revelations about pity, approval suddenly seems like a wonderful thing. She may not be worth what everyone expects, but she could prove she's worth _something_ at least.

She's been thinking about this a lot lately- about how depressed she is, about how apathetic she's been, on the whole, and wondering just how she got there, what, if anything, she can do to rectify this situation.

If she'd have been liked when she was younger, maybe her life would have turned out different up 'til this point. Maybe she wouldn't be so cynical. Maybe having more people who loved her would have had a significantly different effect on her outlook on life.

And suddenly, she wants it badly. It's not so much that it's _their_ approval as much as it's having _someone_ like her, having someone other than Rog praise her. And _proving_ she's worth something is a very tempting idea. True, Roger loves her, but he does so because he always has, because she's his little sister. Getting someone to approve through her own merits would be worth having, she thinks. It would definitely show those idiots who think they need to feel sorry for her.

When her parents speak, she starts to listen.

* * *

The bottom layer of her satchel is lined twice over with crumpled papers from over the years, and Martina, on a whim, pulls the whole lot out and goes through them, smoothing out the more scrunched ones, checking the dates and lining them up in order, all her exams since she was seven.

She has a good look.

And her face falls as she tracks her progress across the years, as she sees the evidence of her wasted youth all laid out in a white, semi-crumpled, scribbled-on row. A-s and ninety per cents slide down a slope through the eighties, the seventies and then take a nose-dive right into the chasm of fail grades.

She can pinpoint the exact moment she stopped caring, the date the last of her aspirations died scribbled in the corner of the page in red pen, recorded for all time. It was shockingly early.

Martina looks back further, can see that, even when she _was_ trying her heart wasn't fully in it. She picks up a piece of paper, practically falling-apart with age, writing and blue lines almost faded completely away, with one sentence written across it.

_I don't know what I want to do._

There's a very angry teacher's comment underneath it, taking up nearly half a page, ironically a lot longer than her 'essay', about how disappointing it is that she didn't even bother to try, but Martina can distinctly remember sitting for nearly half an hour working out what to write for that particular assignment. She had _tried_, but she hadn't known what to do- hadn't known at all.

And the thing is, she thinks as she stares at it again, if she was made to rewrite that essay again now, if she was asked again what she might do after she finishes school, she'd write exactly the same thing. She still has no idea. She hasn't planned that far ahead at all. Just getting through each day is enough of an effort, without actually sitting down and mapping out some distant future.

But it's not so distant anymore. She's only got two more years left before she's going to get chucked into the world to make something of herself- and she's only managed to buy that extra time by somehow doing all right in her O-levels. She does have to seriously start thinking about what, if anything, she might be capable of.

And perhaps, she thinks, just perhaps, she might be able to prove, somehow, to her parents that she _was_ worth having after all.

* * *

She decides sixth form will be a fresh start, puts the effort in right away, and for the first week everything she does comes back with- well, not _fantastic _marks, she burnt _that_ boat by bludging for so long, and hence not fully understanding everything now- but some quite high pass marks, Cs and Bs and the like, and encouraging comments about having made a 'solid effort'. She shows these off to her parents, and while they don't outwardly act majorly excited, just give her half-hearted pats on the shoulder and just enough encouragement to stop her feeling completely downcast, she hears her Mam telling her Dad, late at night, when they think she's in bed, that they _knew she could be made into something useful._

She smiles. It's working. She resolves to do well again.

* * *

'Do you think Martina's maturing?'

'Hmph?' mutters Martina's dad.

'Do-you-think,' her mother says, slower, a hint of annoyance colouring her tone, 'Martina's growin' up?'

'Ff. She's gettin' taller.'

Martina, listening through her bedroom wall, smirks to herself. When she's just observing them, as if she were an outsider, she could almost like these two. Their dry, flat retorts to each other don't half amuse her sometimes- if they weren't her parents, if they weren't two people who resented her being around, if they hadn't chucked her brother out of home, she could almost…maybe…

'Pay _attention, _Geoff. Put that paper down.'

'I'm readin' somethin' _important_, _forgive me_.'

'You're readin' the racin' form.'

'Does this _look_ like the racin' form ter you?'

'Geoff, hidin' it inside the jobs section isn't foolin' anyone.'

Martina sniggers.

A short grumble ensues, followed by the sound of a paper being slapped down.

'Oh, _all right_, love- you 'appy now?'

'Thank you.'

'_Don't mention it_,' her dad mutters.

'Now I've got yer attention- _at last_- what d'you think o' Martina?'

'You mean in general, or in some specific circumstance?'

A sharp sigh.

'_ 'aven't-you-noticed_,' her Mam says, clearly fed up, '_that-she-is-growin'-up?'_

Pause.

'What d'you mean?'

'Just recently, like. She's been almost…sensible, you know. Mature. She's been takin' more of an interest in her schoolwork, she's been helpin' around the 'ouse…it's almost as if…'

'As if what?'

'Oh, I don't know, love. I just think she's improvin', that's all. Just observed it. Thought it was good.'

'Oh, good. Great. Now can I 'ave me bloody paper back?'

Her Mam groans.

Martina snickers, and is about to move away from the wall to reflect on the conversation when her Dad speaks up again.

'Eh. You might be right there. She 'asn't answered me back in…what? Month or two now.'

'P'raps she's growin' out o' that.'

'Bloody well 'ope so.'

'It's nice, isn't it, this? Roger's standin' on 'is own two feet, Martina's growin' up…we've done all right, in the end.'

At once a dampener materialises over the hope that's been igniting in Martina's chest, dousing the stirrings of affection and replacing them with a trickle of the old resentment. They can't say they've _done well_. Roger's only 'standing on his own two feet' because they forced him out into the street- and as for her, well, she's only 'growing up' in their eyes because she's not openly opposing them at the moment, is keeping the peace to make her own situation a bit better.

The comment disgusts her.

She gets back into bed, grinding her teeth, shoving her hands underneath her head and replaying the words over and over rather than trying to sleep. What's the point in trying to fix things with them, if they're going to take the credit for it? If they're going to think that they've been right all along, that they were perfectly justified in treating her like total and utter…no, she won't have that. Maybe it's not worth bothering, maybe she should just give up and…

She remembers her pact. She'd vowed, when Monica was patronising her, when her teachers were giving her a hard time, that she was going to try harder from now on, if only to stop herself from looking like a helpless case. She'd vowed, when her parents started taking more of an interest in her, that she would prove she was worth the extra attention.

And Martina keeps her pacts. Martina is stubborn, Martina doesn't back down from something unless it's absolutely certain, one hundred-per cent, that there's no point in continuing, that she has to change her mind or she'll suffer.

So, tugging the blankets tighter round her neck and muttering to herself, Martina shuts her eyes and hopes she can forget about this conversation in the morning and continue with her plan as if it hadn't happened.

* * *

'Gettin' too busy fer me, now, are you?' Roger nudges her with his elbow as they sit eating chips from greasy paper, chatting and generally wasting time.

Martina elbows him back, smiling in satisfaction as he rubs his ribcage.

'I'm not too busy fer you,' she growls, 'I've just 'ad a lot ter do.'

'Which is, in fact, precisely what bein' _too busy_ means.'

'I'm 'ere now, aren't I?'

'Yeah, but I'm 'alf expectin' you ter suddenly look at yer watch and dash away on the breeze…'

Martina's eyes spin in their sockets. 'When 'ave I ever done that?'

Roger looks down at her, smiling impishly, and the ruffianish adorableness that shines out of his weathered face sweetens Martina's sour expression.

'I'm just kiddin' yer!'

She sighs, aims a half-hearted whack at him.

'What've you 'ad ter do then, anyway?'

Martina plucks a chip from the paper, tearing half of it off with her teeth. 'I've been studyin'.'

Roger snorts. 'I'm sorry? It just sounded like me sister said she was _studyin'.'_

'P'raps that's because she _did_.'

'Studying? You?'

'Is that so 'ard ter believe?'

Roger seems to be trying very hard to think of something smart to say, but all he comes up with is _well, yeah._

She lets her eyes roll again. The amount of times she's done that lately, they'll roll right out of her head and off down the road one of these days, she thinks.

'I've got ter start thinkin' o' me future,' she says testily.

'You were never worried about all that before.'

'Well…' Martina squashes the chip between her fingers, flicks it away. 'I… am now. I suppose.'

When Rog doesn't have anything to say about that, she keeps going. 'I mean, I've got to start…oh, I don't know…makin' things better. I want to start doin' well in things, so…'

She twists her hands together, spreading chip grease across her palms but not caring, 'Rog, people think I'm _pitiful_. That I'm pathetic. I don't want to be like that.'

'You could never be that, pet! I'll just come down and show 'em the scars from when I dared-'

'Oh, I know, I know, I can fight back- that's not the problem 'ere. I just want…I just want ter…I don't even know 'ow to explain it, Rog. But whatever it is, I think I can make a start by provin' to Mam and Dad that I'm not completely useless.'

'So that's why you're swottin', is it?' Rog mutters. 'Pet, you don't have to bother about pleasin' our bloody useless parents ter show you're worth somethin'- I mean, do you honestly think grovellin' to them is makin' things any better?'

'I'm not grovellin',' Martina protests, folding her arms and allowing a sullen look to cross her face. 'I'm just doin' the right thing. I think.'

Roger ignores the remark, just pondering. 'Can you honestly tell me things are better for you?'

That stops her. _Are_ things better? She tries to look back, to catalogue all her feelings over the past few years, to map out the differences, but she comes up with nothing.

She stares out across the Mersey, feeling the breeze slap her face and tangle her hair, whistling around her ears.

'I don't know, Rog,' she says after a while, letting her shoulders drop into a sigh, 'I don't know. I want them to be.'

She turns to him, brushing a great mess of hair off her face and squinting at him.

'D'you think that sounds daft?'

'No, pet, no,' he puts his arm around her, rubbing her shoulder and pulling her closer to him, 'not at all. You just want ter be valued, that's all. Ain't nothin' wrong with that, 'Tina. I just…don't think you should feel you need ter start stickin' yer face in schoolbooks just ter make Mam and Dad like you.'

'Is this another one o' those 'bad influence' speeches comin' up?' Martina asks, unable to help herself. Rog ignores the remark.

'You don't need to do everythin' they want just ter feel worthy- you are anyway, you know? And I'll always value you. I'll always want you. I told yer- didn't I?'

'I know, Rog. I know.' The reassurance normally comforts her, but today it's getting under her skin just a little. He doesn't seem to be getting what she's trying to say- not that she's expressing it all that well. Truth is, she knows what she wants, but actually putting what that is into words and organised thoughts is difficult. 'But I still sort o' want ter make somethin' o' meself- if that's possible. Just ter show I can.'

'Well, good luck with that, pet,' Rog says, thumping her on the shoulder. 'And if it doesn't work out, you're welcome to come to me, okay?'

She's not all that sure he's not just saying that, just making a light-hearted offer in the spirit of the moment, but it does something a bit odd to Martina. A rebellious thought starts to stir, refusing to let her quash it.

_I could just forget about this. I could go to Roger. I wouldn't need to fight for anything. _

It isn't that she hasn't contemplated going to Roger before. Those few occasions she's tried to leave the house she's always had that in mind- _Roger would let me stay_- but since she's decided to make a go of it, to make the most of her life and try and prove her worth, she's stopped thinking it so much. She's stopped making plans to leave the house and started focussing more on her work, and the thought's been buried among other, back-of-the-mind, less important things.

But now it's back, and it's tempting her once again. Hadn't she, just last night, been annoyed at her progress, at the fact that it only made her parents feel they'd _done a good job_ on her, rather than regretting not taking better care of her? If that's all the outcome is going to be, isn't it better if she just goes, starts making a brand-new, pitiless life away from them?

But she's stubborn. And she's made a pact.

And she's going to stick with it.

So she goes home, and she keeps doing what she's doing, just praying and hoping that it'll work, and she'll have something to show for it after all this.

* * *

And for a while, for a little while at least, it does work. Martina's efforts produce visible improvements in the quality of her life- her marks rise until she's passing everything (albeit only just, in some cases), though she still can't say she particularly likes or trusts any of her friends, they've noticed a change in her and there seems to be a fair bit more respect there. And her parents keep talking to her, keep talking _about_ her, about her being useful, and Martina finds life at home just a little bit less unbearable.

But as always, as with every shining moment of near-happiness Martina seems to experience, it can't last, and her deeply-held insecurities begin to rear their heads once more, fuelled even more by Roger's almost-official offer to take her in. As six months pass, then more, it becomes harder and harder to keep to her plan, to not just give up and go back to the way she was, furious and resentful with no intention of doing anything but grumble about her lot. It's hard to stay optimistic when she _still_, even now, wakes up fairly often wishing she didn't have to get out of bed at all, when the worries and doubts lurk in the back of her brain, whispering to her that she shouldn't be bothering with this, because, like everything else she's attempted, she's going to fail at it anyway. Some days it's hard to keep going at all, and she throws her book aside, or walks out of the room where she's been sitting with her parents, having had enough for one day, feeling she could just give up now and nobody would even care.

Some days, the encouragement her parents and teachers give her isn't enough, and Martina convinces herself they're only saying these things to her because they've got some ulterior motive, because something's in it for them if they do. She just wants to tell them to stop wasting their time, to just _admit_ they don't care what becomes of her and be done with it.

But she forces herself to keep at it nonetheless, telling herself over and over _I've managed ter keep this up fer six months, I can do it. I've managed to do this for nine months now; it's workin'. I've been goin' at this fer a year- what'd be the point in quittin' now when I've gotten this far?_

And so she doesn't quit. She soldiers on through the difficulty, forcing herself through the black days and the bleak days and the furious red days and all the hard days in between, persevering sometimes for mere perseverance's sake, because that's what she always seems to do. She soldiers on- and on and on and _on-_ and she endures as much as she can, promising herself that something good is sure to come of all this.

But promises only work if you believe them, and she's not entirely able to convince herself. And, as time goes on, Martina's not sure how long she's going to be able to keep this up.

* * *

'Hello?'

' 'Tina?'

'Roger!' Martina nearly drops the receiver. 'Where've you _been_? I 'aven't seen 'ide nor 'air o' you for weeks!'

'I've been, er,' there's a rather loud sigh over the phone, and Martina can envision him shrugging his shoulders, as is his habit when he can't think of a way to put something delicately or explain himself, '_busy_.'

'So 'ave I.' She's been studying and doing chores round the house. She wonders what Roger's definition of the word might entail, and has to force away the images of strange and unusual crimes that immediately spring to mind.

'Ah, yes, your little plan,' Roger says, and she feels like reaching down the line and throttling him for that tone of voice, 'last time I saw you, you were whingein' that it was pointless. I'd have thought you'd've given up by now.'

Martina rolls her eyes, even though he won't see it.

'Then again,' Rog goes on before she can reprimand him, 'should've thought about it, shouldn't I? This is me _sister_ I'm talkin' about 'ere, isn't it? Me sister who'd rather fight 'til she's blue in the face rather than admit she'd got somethin' wrong or was goin' about somethin' the wrong way…'

'Yer sister who's about ter give you a fat lip…'

'Over the phone?'

She tuts. 'Well, next time I see yer, then. I'll remember.'

'Ah yeah, me sister who can 'old a grudge fer England, as well…'

'Oh, _shut up!_' she huffs.

Silence. Martina can hear crackling on the line- a bad connection, as it always seems to be when she talks with Roger on the phone. Either he calls her from a phone booth, having been cut off for not paying his bill, or Martina manages to get through to him at his flat (a rare occurrence, he's hardly ever in when she does call), and it's always difficult trying to have a decent conversation over the hideous background hissing.

'Oh, cheer up, pet.' Roger says at last, snorting. 'And is it workin' _now_, then? Your plan?'

Martina considers. 'It's..somethin's 'appenin'. I think.'

'Doesn't sound very convincin', pet.'

Martina sighs down the line. Roger's only pointing out the obvious, but she'd rather he didn't. She's put so much energy, so much time, so much of _herself_ into trying to make this work, and she'd just like to maintain, for as long as she possibly can, the tiny spark of hope that it _is_ working.

And it's going _all right_, she has to say- not particularly wonderfully, but not terribly either, and so she's kept her hand over that little spark, fanned it, tried to build it into a little flame, done her utmost not to let it go out. And she doesn't want Rog blowing on it now, not after she's been protecting it for so long. She's talking to her mother again, her father even, sometimes, she's been getting slightly better results, for the first time she's actually started to think about what she might do after she finishes school. If she does keep this up, if she does manage to get it right, she might possibly have the potential, the qualifications, to do something halfway decent. She's not sure what that something might be, but there could _be _something, and that's enough to make her head spin, her brain buzz.

She's beginning to realise that if she does make a good go of this, it will not only stop people pitying her, but it might actually, quite possibly, make her sort of…maybe… a little bit happy. A little bit successful. A little bit good about herself. And she reminds herself of this when she's just had a fight with her parents, when she's just considered throwing in the towel, when things don't seem to be going her way and her family are annoying her no end. She's doing it to get their approval, but she _is_ also doing it for herself. And so she's going to keep trying to improve herself. She's going to ignore what Roger's told her (the first time she ever thought she'd find herself deciding _that_, she thinks, if you exclude the time she deliberately disregarded his warnings not to touch his mate's home brew).

'Well, it _is,_' she insists. 'Somethin' _is_ 'appenin'.'

'Okay, pet. Okay.'

'So,' she changes the subject, twisting the phone cord around her fingers, 'how're things your end?'

'Oh, er…not bad, pet, not bad… I'm getting' on well. I'm seein' a few mates tonight.'

'Oh, yeah? And what are you gonna get up to?'

'I, er,' Roger clears his throat, his voice suddenly uneasy, evasive, even. 'Just, er…' he sort of mumbles an unintelligible answer and trails off, and Martina's brows dip towards her nose.

'Rog?'

'I, er…I have ter go, sweetheart. Talk to you later, okay?'

'Okay,' Martina says, frowning. 'See yer.'

'Bye, 'Tina.'

'Love you,' Martina says, but he's already hung up.

* * *

The beginning of the end- well, another of many ends, anyhow, has been lurking in the background for a while now, waiting to happen. It is, though, the beginning of a beginning as well, of a completely new stage in her life.

Martina is doing the dishes voluntarily, up to her elbows in soap and water, scrubbing a plate quite vigorously to vent out her frustration. It's been a foul day, just everything and everyone getting on her nerves, and there's nobody around that she can talk to about it. Her studying hasn't been going particularly well, her parents are bickering once _again_, and she hasn't heard a peep out of Roger for at least a week, hasn't seen him in the flesh for nearly five. The last time she tried to phone him, she'd gotten an _I can't chat today, something pretty urgent has… look I'll call you back,_ and she's still waiting for him to do so.

'And what am I supposed ter do about that, eh?' a shout rings through the house, the kitchen door bangs open and her dad storms into the room, his mother at her heels, the two of them having decided for some unfathomable reason to continue waging their war in here where she's attempting to get things done.

She grits her teeth, tries to ignore them and keeps on washing the plates. She wants to hurry up and get it done so she can go back to her books- she's only got three weeks 'til her A-levels now, and despite the extra work she's been putting in she doesn't feel adequately prepared, not at all. She wouldn't listen if that were possible, but her parents' row filters into her brain whether she wants it to or not.

'How many times are we supposed ter 'ave this argument, Geoff? Until the day we die? We both _know_ what you could do ter make sure we could afford ter pay the bills- _give up gambling!_'

'Oh, you think that's the only thing that's makin' us struggle, do you?'

'What other excuses have we _got_ now? Go on, tell me. Roger's been gone for years, you can't pawn off all your money wastin' excuses on him…'

_About time you wised up to that one_, Martina thinks, but she doesn't say anything.

'Oh, and-'

Her mother ignores his attempt to butt in.

'I've been workin' me heart out for this family, I've been doin' _extra_ work for years, as Martina can attest…'

Martina's fingers clench around the dish she's holding. _Don't bring me into this_, she thinks, but doesn't say anything.

'…and _still_ the money just keeps draining away- what other explanation is there?'

'The bloody government!'

'So the government are the ones goin' down the betting shop, goin' down the pub to make bets with mates, playing poker with…'

'All right, all _right_!' He waves his hands wildly in front of his face. 'I take yer _point_, bloody hell, woman, you know how to beat a message to death, don't yer?'

'Well, it doesn't seem to be goin' through your thick skull, does it?'

'So I might 'ave a small problem with gambling- but does that necessarily mean that- argh!' her father throws his hands up in the air, and Martina can't refrain from saying something. This conversation is annoying her, rubbing her up every wrong way possible, though she's not entirely sure why. Her parents are acting oblivious and at the same time blunderingly perceptive, the way they always seem to end up doing, and she hates the way this is going.

'Well why don't you do somethin' about it, then?' Martina says snidely.

Her father rounds on her. 'What do _you_ know about it, then? When was the last time _you_ tried to sort out your own life- you're not exactly a little saint, are you?'

No, of course she's not. Far from it, but she's been trying so hard not to cause any fuss, not to rock the boat, that the fact that her father _still_ sees her as an unstable nuisance angers her. She _has_ been trying to sort out her own  
life- what does he think she's been studying for? Fun?

He hasn't finished with her yet, though.

'You can 'ardly talk about problems, can you? You can 'ardly say anythin' about me when you're the stubbornest, most selfish, most unfeeling person I ever _met_, and that's _including_ your mother…'

Her mam makes an enraged noise of protest, but her dad takes no notice, continuing to let his abuse cascade out in Martina's direction.

He yells more at her, something along the lines of _you're always (something irrelevant), and you just (something else), and you never even (something else entirely), _and Martina isn't even listening to the specifics anymore- she'd gotten the gist at the beginning of his rant. She just stands there, staring him in the face as she takes it, refusing to let any of the pain he's inflicting show in her features, in her stance.

'…so when you fix up the messes of your own life, _then_ you can turn around and give me that little-miss-pious face and tell me to _do something about _mine, okay?!'

Martina says nothing. She senses she's not required to.

'So until then, just _get out of my face, _Martina!'

She would have tolerated the rest of it. She would have been angry, but she might have gotten over it. But that phrase, that phrase that has been lurking round every corner of her life, following her at every turn, the phrase that has ruined her happiness and kicked off probably every problem she has, has just turned up, albeit in a vaguely different version.

He might have used the words 'my face', but the meaning of the utterance in its entirety is clear.

_Get out of the way_.

Something in Martina shatters. She's not sure why she snaps, why now out of all the times she's been annoyed by what they say or do, out of all the times she's been hurt by their callous or unjust attitudes towards her, but today she's just not having it. She's fed up of hearing that day after day. She's fed up with hearing them bite each other's heads off for pathetic vices and then turn around and act like their woes are all her fault. She's been trying to take it all, trying to put up with it for her own sake, but there comes a point, she decides, where patience is overrated. She's had enough of it. She's done with it. She's done with all of this.

She slams the plate down, feeling the last shreds of her tolerance crack in half along with it, and walks out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.

Martina paces the living room, the rage boiling up inside her, years of pent-up, stashed-away aggro finding their way to the light. She kicks things, tosses others, walking faster and faster around the tiny parlour, unsure what to do with all the energy that's leaking from her. It was, she supposes later when she looks back, inevitable that she'd erupt at some stage. Two years of trying to control your frustration, of succeeding about seventy per cent of the time and pushing it down, can lead to an enormous build-up of pressure. The anger never dissipates, it just sits there, churning, straining to be let go, and as more layers are added to it, as well as an entire childhood worth of bitter memories contributing to the overall sensation…well, she's surprised now she didn't blow a fuse sooner, she really is.

The door opens again, and her mother's standing in the doorway, a half-shocked, half-angry expression cemented onto her face.

'And what d'you call _that, _may I ask?'

'I call that _frustrated individual has more than enough_,' Martina says, as if naming a piece of art. One of her mother's sewing jobs has fallen off the coffee table onto the living room floor. She gives it a kick. There's dirt on it now from her shoes. Good.

'You should know better than to provoke your father like that, miss, and as for the way you're speaking to me…'

'Just consider yerself lucky that _this_ is how I'm speakin' ter you,' Martina says. 'I could go a lot worse, you know, considering.'

'How _dare you…_ oh, what's the use of even sayin' anythin' to you?!' her mother's talking to herself now, rather than Martina.

What the use, eh? What indeed?

'To be honest,' she says, deliberately making the situation worse, 'I've never been able to work that one out. I don't see why you bother speakin' to me at all, it seems to _pain_ you so to-'

'-I don't know what I did sometimes, to end up with a daughter who behaves this way, I really don't. The way you are, the way you treat us all the time…' she's still going on about all the injustices Martina's done to her parents, but Martina's just boiling and bubbling. She doesn't see how her Mam _doesn't_ know what she did- what they both did. They've done everything they can to make sure she feels unloved, unhappy.

It's about time she confronted them with this. She's fed up with bottling up her pain. She's not going to sit back and let them walk all over her anymore, not going to put up with their obvious disdain for her.

'Oh, well I'm sorry,' Martina shouts, 'I'm sorry for _existin'_! I know you didn't want me- I know you don't want me now, but it's _not my fault!_ I didn't _ask_ ter be born, did I?'

Her mother recoils, her anger immediately morphing into pained surprise. 'Is that really what you think?' Her words are soft and sad, and Martina doesn't ever think she's seen her hurt like this. She can't imagine why. All she's done is tell the truth- the truth everyone's aware of anyway- she's just admitted she knows something that's common knowledge.

'I 'eard you and Dad say it when I was six.'

Her mother sits down suddenly, as if being shoved by an external force, and Martina sits down too, waiting for whatever she's about to say. It's bound to be interesting- enlightening, at the very least. She can get some closure on this at last- hearing the words spoken directly to her, _Martina, I don't want you_, will end all that uncertainty, end any pretence of some caring family unit. She can stop trying to please them. She won't have to.

She folds her hands in her lap, ready for it.

'Martina, you can't hold somethin' against us that 'appened eleven years ago…'

'It still 'appened,' Martina folds her arms.

'Well, I'm not gonna lie ter you, Martina, you _were_ unplanned at the beginning, and we did 'ave a lot o' problems at the time- you know about what Rog was goin' through…but,' she reaches forward to take Martina's hand, 'I never meant what I said- I was in a bad mood that day, and just because all those things happened… doesn't mean we don't love you now.'

Martina's stunned. Her Mam has never, ever, ever said she loved her. Ever. The words seem wrong coming from her mouth, like they've been put there by someone else, like she's just acting lines.

And she hates her for saying them. She snatches her hand away, letting her resentment get the better of her.

'That so?' she snaps. 'You've got an odd way o' showin' it, I must say.'

She gets up out of her chair so fast the heavy wooden legs slam into the floor. They'll probably make dents in the floorboards but she doesn't care, she just doesn't care. That's it. She's had it. She can't do this anymore, she can't stay here a second longer, and she doesn't care if she was supposed to be trying to please her parents, she doesn't care if her A-levels are in three weeks, and she just _doesn't bloody care_ if she's being an idiot, if she's being irrational, because she _just can't do this_. It would have been fine if her Mam had just reiterated what Martina's been grudgingly harbouring since she was six, that they didn't want her, that they still don't, that they're just taking care of her because they have to and hoping she'll become an asset in some way. She would have dealt with that. She would probably have stayed put.

It would have been better if this conversation hadn't happened at all in the first place, in fact. She would _definitely_ have stayed put.

But her Mam has just told her she loves her.

And that she can't deal with.

She can't stay after hearing that.

'Where are you goin'?'

Martina pauses halfway to the door. 'I don't want ter live 'ere anymore.'

She doesn't wait around to see her process this. She goes upstairs and starts shoving possessions into a bag: combs, clothes, trinkets that Roger gave her, at the last minute she gathers up her books from her dresser and stuffs them in too. The last thing on her mind at this moment in time is her schoolwork and her exams, but it's an automatic reaction, after two years of gluing herself to them, to take them with her.

She heaves it over her shoulder, staggering a little at the weight, the corner of one of her books poking through the bag into her ribs, and clomps back down the stairs.

Her mother is waiting for her at the foot of the staircase.

'You're not serious.'

'Aren't I?' Martina mutters, pushing past her. She feels sharp nails dig into her as her mother grabs hold of her arm.

'Where are you gonna go?'

Martina shrugs. 'Don't know.'

'What about school?'

Martina shrugs again. 'Don't care.'

'But what about me? What about yer Dad?'

'What _about_ you?' Martina says flatly. 'You'll be better off.' She pushes her aside, grabs the doorhandle, flings the front door open so it goes crashing against the wall.

Her Mam takes a few steps closer.

'You- you can't just walk out on your life!' She sounds almost desperate now, as if she knows, just _knows_ that this isn't Martina storming out as always, that this time it's real.

And for a minute Martina ponders the fact that just maybe her mother actually wants her. Actually wants her to stay.

But she can't do that.

'Watch me,' she says, and walks out the door.

She's well and truly prepared for everything under the sun this time, has money, a jacket and an umbrella, not to mention all her luggage. She's going to do this properly- no more giving up when she's less than a mile from home.

She'll show _them_. She bets even now her mam's still trying to hold onto the idea that she'll turn around in a few minutes or so and come back. She probably _still_ thinks Martina hasn't got a plan, that of _course_ she'll give up with this escapade, because she's got nowhere to go but home, because she needs her parents and her childhood house to survive.

But Martina _does_ have a plan. She may not have let on to her mother, but she knows exactly where she's going.

She's known forever.

* * *

Martina hasn't thought any further ahead in her plan than _get to Roger's._ She doesn't know what she's going to say, how she's going to live, what's going to happen about school. All thoughts of the future are totally eclipsed by the idea of being with Rog, of being somewhere she knows she'll be loved, knows she'll be welcome.

She knows the address by heart- she's written it onto envelopes and posted them more times than she can count, but writing to a place and finding it are two different matters entirely. She's never been to this part of the city before. The area where she lives- no, _lived- _with her parents can't exactly be called the desirable part of Liverpool, but Roger's postcode seems to take 'dodgy' to a whole new level. The apartment buildings get smaller, closer together and more dilapidated as she draws nearer to her destination, and Martina begins to feel unsettled and nervous about walking these streets at night. She clutches her bag closer to her, hoping desperately that it's heavy enough to lay out potential attackers, stays within two feet of a street lamp at all times, where possible.

Roger's flat seems to be located in the most ramshackle of all the ramshackle buildings, and for a moment she wonders if there's been a mistake, but no, there's the shiny(ish) gold number twenty-four fixed to the splintering wooden door, there's the barely legible _R.M._ scrawled on the nameplate in pencil, and it doesn't matter, she thinks, that the place looks dreadful and the hallway smells damp. It's where her brother lives, and he's going to be pleased to see her, and they're going to be blissfully happy, in a way she's never been up til now.

She knocks, and Roger answers the door.

It's only been maybe a month since she saw him last, but he's become ravaged in that time. His hair sticks to his face, falls in rats' tails around his shoulders. He hasn't shaved in at least a week; his eyes are sunken right into his skull.

His hands twitch, and his eyes dart about, as though he's expecting a vastly more unpleasant visitor.

'Tina!' his voice betrays his shock. Martina feels as if something heavy's smacked her in the gut.

She was anticipating surprise, but not like this. She'd wanted to be a good surprise, the way he's always told her she was when she was first born.

Nonetheless, she gives her smile her best shot. Perhaps it hasn't sunken in yet, the fact that _she's here. _ The happiness is coming soon, she thinks. Any minute now.

'Hi, Rog.'

'What are you _doin' 'ere?'_ he demands, running a hand through his dirty locks.

Martina frowns. Still not pleased.

'Came to see you, didn't I?' she says, just a tad defensively. Why is he acting like this? He's supposed to have let her in by now. She's supposed to be settled, to be commiserating with him about all life's problems, not standing on his doorstep, still waiting for him to properly acknowledge her presence.

This isn't how it was supposed to go at all.

'Pet…' he sighs, scratches his chin, 'this is a bad time.'

What? No! That's not right. That's not what he's supposed to say.

'But…'

'Look, kid, I'm in a bit of a sticky situation at the moment. I don't have time for social visits right now. Why don't you trot off home and come back, say, on the weekend, and we'll have a nice old chat, yeah?'

Martina's entire mind, all her thoughts, all the treasured memories of her past fall to ruins.

Roger _never_ doesn't have time for her. Roger can always spare time to make sure she's okay- _always_.

But he's just told her what her parents have always said. He's too busy for her.

The one person she thought she could depend on in all the world has just told her, in effect, to get out of the way.

_Get out of the way._

The world seems to shake and shudder around her. She thinks she's going to faint. She can feel tears coming.

This is wrong, so _wrong_. It's not what she planned at all. Her one safe refuge has been blown away by Roger's indifference.

This is the end of the world.

Martina waits for the familiar anger to well up inside her. She wants to say _well, see if I care, you selfish bastard_ and storm off.

But she's too crushed. She can't even move. And even if she does storm off, where's she supposed to go?

'I can't go home,' she whimpers pathetically. She's resorted to something she hates in others, something she herself has vowed never to do- playing for pity.

'What d'you mean, you can't go home?'

'I mean I _can't_,' Martina says, pulling herself together, getting a handle on her 'calm' voice before she falls into pieces, 'I've left home.'

'Oh,' says Roger, 'Right.' His eyebrows go together and he scratches his chin as he looks her up and down, trying to decide what to do with her. Martina's never sweated so much. He's got her future, her heart, her _everything_ in his hands.

'How bad was it?' he asks after much deliberation. She wants to just _slap him in the face_- doesn't he grasp the fact that if she's here it _must_ be pretty damn bad?

'I just couldn't take it anymore,' she says, investing every ounce of energy she can spare into keeping her voice steady.

'Pet, I don't think I'm the best choice of person to go to.'

Martina's heart shatters. Who else is there? _But you said, you said I could come to you!_ She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out.

'I mean, I don't think it's any better for you to be here than with Mam and Dad- at least they're _stable_, at least they can _provide_ for you. I can't.'

Roger throws up his hands. 'I mean, 'Tina, I'm hardly gonna turn you away, am I, but-'

That's it. That's all Martina needs to hear to let her control drop to the floor and fling herself at him.

'Thank you,' she says with feeling, clutching him, breathing in the smell of him and stale whiskey, of home and family, 'thank you. Thank you. Thank you.'

She's so relieved, and so desperate for him to accept her she's barely registered the fact that there's a 'but' bit, barely even cares about his reluctance, that she might be imposing on him. She just holds on with all she's got.

'_But_,' Roger repeats firmly, pushing her out to arms' length and holding her there, 'I don't think it'd be good for you, kid, that's all I'm saying. I'm skint, and I'm in tr-er- I'm not a good influence, you know that. I mean, of course I _want_ you here, you're my bloody sister, my little baby miracle, and I'm selfish enough to wanna have you with me all the time- but seriously, pet. If you're clever, you won't wanna stay here. You'll go somewhere better for you. Safer, that is.'

'Maybe I'm not clever,' says Martina. 'Maybe I'm thick enough not ter care what's 'better' fer me.'

'Oh, kid,' says Roger, hugging her, a proper one this time, 'you're not thick. You could never be that.'

'You were the one who told me I was, remember?'

'I'm the thick one,' she hears him mutter into the top of her head. 'If I was smarter I'd 'ave quite drinkin' when you were born, then I wouldn't be in such a _mess_, and I wouldn't feel so guilty about doin' this…'

Martina ignores his 'guilt.' She's had the bad influence record played to her so many times she's stopped listening to it.

Rog loosens his grip on her, pushes the door to his flat fully open and gestures for her to come inside. 'Okay, then, pet. I'll put you up for a while, if you need it. At least until you sort things out. I'll get ya the spare key. Until you can find somewhere better, _mi casa es tu casa.'_

'You _what?'_

'Well, you took Spanish, didn't you?'

' I told you an 'undred times. That was _French_, pillock,' Martina kicks him in the shin, the relief having swept over her enough that she now feels secure enough to tease and laugh again, 'not Spanish. _And_ I dropped it.'

Roger laughs. 'Well, Miss Language-Impaired, it's one of those common-knowledge phrases. Means my place is your place.'

Martina likes the sound of that. It gives her a sense of the word _ours_- of her and Roger together against all odds, sheltered together under the same roof, _sharing_ in something.

She grins. 'Thanks, Rog.'

'Come on,' he says, nudging her, 'get in here.'

* * *

She hadn't imagined Roger to be filthy rich or anything, knowing him, and judging by the state of the streets around her, but still, the squalor that he calls his flat manages to shock her. It's a reasonably decent size for a bachelor apartment, but every inch of it is completely trashed, bottles and boxes and old newspapers littering every room, cluttering every surface. And just like Roger's old bedroom at home, the entire place smells overwhelmingly like a distillery, so much so that she's sure the odour's going to cling to her clothes and she'll walk out smelling like it too.

Still, she's here, she's at Roger's. She's with her brother at last, and she smiles at the thought, if not at the reality of the situation.

Martina moves a few empty pizza boxes and what appears to be a shirt, perhaps a white one long ago, out the way with her foot, sets her bag down in the little bit of cleared space.

'Fraid I've only got one bedroom- sofa's all yours, though,' Roger says, somehow manoeuvring himself through the junk and knocking a whole load of rubbish off the aforementioned sofa with his arm.

It's a hideous piece of furniture, old and dilapidated, and one arm appears to have been chewed by a dog at some point. Martina doesn't want to touch it, doesn't want to come anywhere near whatever hideous diseases it might be incubating, but she steels herself, reminds herself that this is what she wanted, this is what she chose. She crosses the room and sits on it, muttering a 'thanks'.

'I'll getcher a blanket,' Roger vanishes somewhere into the mess and returns with a ragged, checked thing which he tosses at her. He sits down beside her, takes her hand, and for a moment her fantasy comes back to her- the two of them, a happy little brother-and-sister partnership; companionship and talks and attention and all the things she's craved.

And then, before she can open her mouth to voice some of this sentiment, her hand is abruptly dropped. Roger checks his watch, and then springs to his feet in a movement so sharp she nearly jumps.

'Listen, I'm gonna hafta go- got stuff to take care of- but make yourself at home, okay? Help yourself to…whatever's edible that you can find, I think there might be some coffee somewhere that's still okay, you can bung some water in the kettle…' he waves it off, 'yeah, you'll be fine, kid.'

And with a ruffle of her hair and a quick kiss to her forehead he's gone, letting the front door slam shut behind him and leaving Martina on her own.

Martina glances about, taking in her surroundings, trying very hard not to catalogue all the messes, the filth and squalor, all the reasons why this is seeming less like her dream come true and more like yet another nightmare.

She gets up, uses her foot to bulldoze a little path through all the trash and into the next room, discovering that it's what can, in a broad interpretation, be called a kitchen. She doesn't really feel like excavating through the muck in there for food or coffee, so she returns to the front room, taking a good, thorough look at the place that's going to be her home, trying to find a redeeming feature about it.

There's a fireplace, she realises, hidden behind a pair of boots, an empty cardboard box and, for some reason, a rabbit hutch. She could clean it, she thinks, maybe, she could make it cosy in here. And all those bottles on the mantel could go. She'll start on that now.

She moves the cardboard box to one end of the mantelpiece, intending to sweep the entire row into it when something nestled between them catches her eye. A little square silver frame. She plucks it out, smiling as she realises what it is.

It's the picture- the picture of the two of them she'd given him for Christmas one year, a little dust on the glass, a little rust on the frame but the image well-preserved beneath all of that.

Martina's heart melts just a little, and she runs her thumb over it, removing the layer of dust and gazing into her eight-year-old eyes, trying to remember what she was thinking back then. She can't recall much, just a drizzly cloud almost permanently looming over her head, punctured a few times so one or two happy memories of her and Rog can shine through.

She finishes wiping the gunk off the picture, sets it back on the mantel and walks back over to the couch, folding her legs underneath her. It's starting to get a bit cold, or maybe she's only just noticing it, having had other things taking up more space in her mind, and she picks up the blanket Roger's left her, inspecting it a couple of times in case of fleas before deciding it's all right and wrapping it round herself.

She waits for a while, unsure what to do or think, considering unpacking her bag but realising she's got nowhere to put anything if she does, wondering if maybe she should go and find Roger but realising he didn't say where he was going, wondering if she should brave the kitchen again but deciding she's too tired; she'll tackle it tomorrow.

What has she gotten herself into? It suddenly hits her, fully, properly, that _she's run away from home_, that she's left everything behind her for good. Her house, gone. Her parents, gone.

She's not sure how she feels about that.

There should probably be some sentiment, some tears or something. Maybe she should be feeling guilty. She rolls her eyes at the notion.

She's not going to feel remorse about leaving her parents behind- as she told her mother, they'll be much better off without her to have to provide for.

She turns her attention to her surroundings again. It's not a nice place, and, after studying a grease stain on the wall for a good ten minutes or so, she finds the tears coming.

It's not because of any luxuries she's left behind, though. It's because she has no idea what happens now, what's going to become of her. Roger clearly can't provide for her, and though there's no way he'd turn her out onto the street, she doesn't want to make him struggle. She's going to have to find a way to support herself, if she can. She's going to have to find a way to make living in this cesspit bearable, too.

Is she going to be _able_ to stay here? She's not of age yet- for all she knows her parents might be spiteful enough to demand she returns home, and she'd have to go. And if they aren't, and if they don't, what's she supposed to do with the rest of her life? How long can Roger afford to keep her? How long has she got to provide for herself, before she tips the scales and sends Roger under?

And where is Roger, anyway? He'd looked terrified when he'd answered the door, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that he's done a couple of dubious deeds. Is she going to get messed up in all that as well?

_What is going to become of her now?_

She's frightened, unsure.

But she's here, she's _here_, she's where she's always wanted to be. This is what she's dreamed of- she should be ecstatic.

Living the dream isn't what it's cracked up to be, she thinks, sitting wrapped in moth-eaten blankets on Roger's sofa, looking around at the shambles of a flat, at the door her brother's long since disappeared through.

It's more than slightly disappointing.

It's a little bit crap, if she's honest.

* * *

Come to think of it, it probably isn't the best time to have run away- a few weeks before she has to sit her A-levels. Problems don't wait for convenient times, though, Martina decides, and if she still wants to do them, she'll have to work her schedule around all the upheavals.

And she might as well still do them, keep going to school, because otherwise the last two years of her life at least will have been completely pointless, and the waste would annoy her. She hates wastes, and she's not going to make her life one- no more than it already _has _ been, anyway. And if she can get her A-levels, her chances at getting decent employment might slightly increase.

She revises in snatches, under the window at night, because the bulb in the ceiling's blown and she can't turn the light on, a couple of sessions of maybe fifteen minutes each, and most of the information's not going in. Still, she's doing something, and it seems productive enough, so she keeps going nonetheless.

The words blur against the page, and her eyes feel heavy. She tries to go through what she's learned in her head, and gets the impression Shakespeare was saying something about communism, and that can't be right, she never got taught that. She's gotten her textbooks mixed up.

She gets up early to trek to school, sometimes only having gotten two hours sleep, and slumps at her desk, barely listening, unable to concentrate at all, which does not bode well for her upcoming exams. Still, she puts in an effort, or at least makes an effort to put in an effort, keeps putting in an appearance, keeps reading at night, the words becoming a blob of print on the page and not even resembling words at all, let alone forming sentences that stick in her brain. Martina wonders briefly if it's possible to pass a test just off the number of hours you studied alone, regardless of how productive those hours were, but, being the pessimist she is, soon shakes off that idea. She's not going to get much more learnt now. She'll just have to make do with the snippets she's been steadily learning over the past two years, with trying to remember the things she heard in class.

There's not much chance of getting an A, even a B with that, but it's not as if she can do much more.

Oh, what a mess.

* * *

The front door bangs on its hinges and Martina drops her book as Roger lurches, all but _rolls_ into the room, garbling something that's so slurred she can't pick out a single word.

She's at his side in seconds, stumbling over her books, her legs still entangled in her blankets. Roger staggers toward her, wobbles and then collapses onto his hands and knees.

'Urgh, 'Tin',' he groans, ' 'm gon' be sick.'

He's come home drunk before, when they were both living in the family house, and he's turned up at school to pick her up with a hangover once, but she's never seen him this plastered before. He's barely coherent, unable to keep his balance, looking like he's about to pass out any minute. Martina wonders momentarily whether this is what she looked like when she was young, and a thought flashes through her mind, a little glimmer of doubt.

_This isn't the sort of thing children should have to live with. Maybe that's why when I was younger they all said…_

It's one thing simply to know he drinks, but to see the effects working in this way…just for the tiniest fragment of a millisecond, she wonders if her parents might have been right all along. But _no_, she thinks firmly. No. He makes mistakes. Doesn't mean she should stay away from him. She can't- she needs him. And just at this moment in time, he needs her.

Martina doesn't know the first thing to do in this sort of situation- should she move him or leave him? She knows he can usually hold his alcohol, but even so, she panics for a little while that perhaps an ambulance is in order. Does he just need to sleep it off- _can_ he sleep it off?

She panics.

She flits around him, alternating between shaking him, shrieking at him to stay conscious and trying to move everything away from him in case he _does_ vomit. Roger just looks at her, dazed, and snorts.

'Don' _stress_ M'tina_,' _he slurs, 'y're always stressin'. 's givin' me 'n 'eadache.'

She's not sure it _is_ her panicking that's giving him a headache, given his current state. She relaxes a little, rolling her eyes.

'Rog, love,' she says, keeping her voice calm, 'what d'you need?'

'Need…gon' be sick…' he gurgles, '_now.'_

Martina puts her hands under his arms. 'Can you make it to the bathroom, Rog?' Concerned for his wellbeing she may be, but she won't appreciate it if he throws up all over the room where she sleeps, or Heaven forbid all over her books.

'C'mon, Rog. Just a few feet…'

'No, _now_.'

It's not an easy feat to drag a reluctant, very drunk, full-grown man out of the room, especially when you've only just woken up yourself, but Martina invests every ounce of her physical strength into the task, managing to make it to the kitchen before Roger decides he can't hold on any longer.

Well, she thinks, sighing as she watches him retch, at least _most_ of it has gotten in the sink.

Roger collapses into a chair, panting and sweating. Some strange sort of maternal instinct Martina wasn't aware she had kicks in, and she puts a hand to his forehead, checking his temperature.

Roger groans. 'I'm a git.'

'No,' Martina mutters, running her hand over his brow. 'No, you're not- you just can't 'elp it.'

_He can't_, she thinks desperately, trying to force the little glimmer of doubt away now it's made another appearance. She's not going to let it take hold. _He really can't._

'I know I'm a git,' Roger says, pushing her hands away, waving his own in front of his face as if pushing branches away, 'but what's 'e got that I 'aven't?'

Martina blinks. 'Who?'

He opens his mouth and pauses. 'J…no. T…nah, _him,' _ he says, putting bitter emphasis on the word. '_Hhhimm.'_

Informative.

'Who?' Martina repeats gently.

'Why'd you want _him_ anyway? What's _'e_ got? What were you thinkin'? I mean, 'e's what, taller, better-lookin', cleverer than me? He's what? Less drunk than me?'

'What are you _talkin' about_, Rog?'

It's as if he hasn't heard. '_Really_, Kate, 'ow could you want 'im over me?'

_Kate?_

'I'm not Kate, Rog,' she says slowly, bringing her face to his level and trying her utmost not to recoil at the overpowering stench of alcohol, 'it's me, Roger. Martina.'

'I knew that,' mumbles Roger, and then he creases his brow. 'Maaartina. I know you. Don't I? I know…when did we go out?'

'We didn't,' Martina says. 'I'm your sister, Roger.'

'Sister Roger, Sister Roger- hah! Like a nun!' he giggles like a small girl, and then puts one finger over her lips. 'Shh. Not funny, that.'

Martina tuts fondly. 'Come on,' she says, wrapping an arm around his waist and heaves, 'let's get you ter bed so you can sleep this off, eh?'

Roger doesn't budge- he's still snickering away while simultaneously telling an invisible audience that his 'joke' is no laughing matter.

'Come on,' Martina says again, more sternly this time, and Roger lets her tug him to his feet.

'Oh, _yeeah_, 'Tina. You're 'Tina. I know you.'

'Yeah, I'm 'Tina. Come on. This way.'

'Should've told me you were 'Tina.'

'Yeah, I should, I know,' she humours him. 'Come on, Rog.'

She guides him towards his room, watches him flop onto his bed and almost immediately start snoring, and though a wave of relief washes over her that the worst seems to be over, she leans against the doorframe, just watching and thinking.

_I'm in way over me 'ead._

If she hadn't been here tonight… _well_, she hasn't been here until now, and it churns her up to think of Roger stumbling him in this sort of state and collapsing, alone and out of his senses. She's never really sat and thought about Roger's problems, has always tried to gloss over them, paint over them with his brotherly love and affection, push them away- out of sight, out of mind. It's always worked- but now, being with him, living with him, having to deal with this, she's beginning to worry that this is something she can't ignore anymore.

* * *

'Who's Kate?' she asks the next morning as Roger stumbles out from his room, groaning and rubbing his temples. He stops when the words reach his ears.

'What?'

'You called me Kate last night. Who is she?'

'Oh, did I, pet? Ugh.' He hiccups, and then puts his hands back to his forehead. 'Kate was…another person I screwed up.'

_You don't screw people up_, Martina wants to say. She thinks that, she does, she really, really d-...the words won't leave her mouth, though. And so she just gives him a sad smile and says no more about it.

* * *

She sits her first paper that morning. It's history, one which she thinks she's ready for until she actually opens the exam up and attempts to read the first question. It may just be her, but she doesn't think those words actually make sense…she blinks hard a couple of times, shakes her head, looks again, trying to lift the veil of sleepiness that's clouding her mind and decipher the instructions. There _are_ English words in there somewhere, she realises, but it takes her a few goes at reading the first word to realise it says 'describe.' She's well and truly frazzled.

She struggles her way through the first hour or so, writing words and even sentences twice in her stupor, making things up that she doesn't remember, leaving some answers unfinished but forgetting when she comes back to them what she intended to write to complete them.

Everyone else is writing at three times her speed, scribbling and scratching and turning pages in a flurry, but Martina can barely think at all, let alone think and respond _fast_. She keeps blundering along at her own pace, her eyes so heavy that an hour and five minutes in, she physically can't go on a moment longer. She puts her forehead down on the desk.

_If I just rest me 'ead for…a minute or two…maybe then I could concentrate better…_

When she opens her eyes there are only ten minutes left.

Martina groans quietly and pushes her pen across the desk. There's no point in trying to redeem herself in ten minutes.

Well, that's a good start to her exams, isn't it?

* * *

When Martina gets her A-level results back, she's not holding out much hope for fantastic scores, and her report lives up to her low expectations.

She's passed three. But only just. Two E-s and one D, and for maths, which she hadn't wanted to take…oh, well she was never expecting to pass that one anyway.

Well, so much for the 'success', the 'something useful' her parents had hoped to get out of her.

Oh, well. She doesn't care about that anymore, anyway. She was only doing it to please them, she convinces herself, and she's left home now. That, and so nobody would feel sorry for her, and apart from Roger, she hasn't got anyone _to_ feel sorry for her anymore. She's left school, certain she won't see anyone from _there_ again.

She's got enough qualifications to get some sort of work, she supposes, though she's not exactly sure what- she can survive, and that's all that counts.

She folds the report in half, making a nice, sharp crease down the middle, tucks it into her bag and promptly puts it out of her mind, focussing instead on the imminent future before her. She's finished with that education business, now comes the task of building a _life_.

She's gotten herself to Roger's- that was her only plan since she was thirteen, really ( apart from those failed attempts to get various others to respect her, which she'd rather forget) and now she's done that, well, she's not sure what else to do. She remembers sitting on the end of her bed when she was seven, staring at a report she had to write about her future career and writing _I don't know_. Nothing's changed. She's never aspired to anything, really, has put so much effort into defending herself against those who upset her and antagonising her parents that she's never gotten round to setting any proper goals. She's beyond hope of getting a really _good_ job- her terrible A-level results have cemented that.

Martina considers this for a moment and then sinks down onto the couch with a heavy sigh. She can't say, in total honesty, that she's not just a little bit disappointed. All her life she's been suppressing any sorts of dreams, choosing to carefully cultivate a bleak, cynical outlook on life, convincing herself there was no hope for her and acting accordingly, but now, now that's been confirmed for her by her own decisions, she's beginning to realise just what a mistake she's made.

She'd been doing better at school. Perhaps she _could_ have redeemed herself. She could have been something decent. She could have had a dream, and followed it.

But it's too late now. And she hates herself for only just realising what could have been now there's nothing she can do about it.

She allows herself just a few minutes to wallow.

And then she sighs, resigns herself to her fate, as always, and falls back on her contingency plan- to make the best of things. It's all she can do, really.

She'll start looking for a job tomorrow.

* * *

**She's getting there. Very close to the DHSS now. This is probably my least favourite of the three parts, because mostly it's just Martina's mind being messed around, but ah well. The final installment should be up in two weeks maximum, hopefully less time than that, and be prepared for a few surprises as well as the inevitable.**


	3. Part Three: 1976-1979

**Once again, I got carried away. Forgive me. **

**Warnings, as usual: self-esteem issues, implied dysthymia, criminal activity, sexual references, alcohol abuse et cetera. I'll also warn for lots of references: Shirley Valentine ones, some subtle, others less so, just because...yeeess... references to things Martina said or did in various episodes of Bread as well as references to At the End of the Day.**

**Also forgive my slight fudging in terms of DHSS stuff. To get an idea of hiring policies and stuff I literally googled 'what is it like to work in the dss' and read a DWP recruitment booklet which was the nearest thing I could find. So yeah, my knowledge of Social Security matters comes from Bread, my own experiences claiming Centrelink which is slightly different and our lovely hero the internet. :P**

* * *

**Part Three**

**1976-1979**

The days in Roger's flat are some of the worst, and yet at the same time some of the happiest of her life. There are no set hours for anything, they do what they like, _when_ they like, and nobody questions them. Roger often disappears for hours at a stretch, and when he comes back he won't talk about where he's been. And she doesn't push him, because it isn't her business.

And so Martina goes out as well, gets a bit of a life for herself. She meets people, occasionally, and sometimes brings them home, because Roger's not usually in at night. She frequents certain places, makes one or two odd acquaintances who'll never really qualify as friends but are good enough to chat to in a wine bar and grumble about life and men and other boring subjects with. She has enough to keep her occupied that she isn't bored.

But at the same time, she's growing up very quickly. Roger's disappearances, his total lack of faculties and money and his uncaring outlook on life mean that Martina's beginning to shoulder a lot of responsibilities, whether she wants to or not. Her brother's been living on chippy-food for years now- disgustingly greasy and unhealthy, as well as needlessly expensive- so Martina teaches herself to cook, with the help of recipes found in the back of magazines and whatever instructions she can get her hands on. She gets hold of a mop and a few cloths and cleans up the flat, because, really, the place is just disgusting, and discovers that there are actually tiles in the kitchen, and at some stage they may have been blue.

She goes out looking for jobs, too. Roger doesn't work. He gets by on Social Security- it's great, he tells her, she should sign up for it, because they can give you plenty and you don't even have to do anything other than queue up once a fortnight and sign a form-but Martina would rather earn her own money, prove her own worth, as she's always tried to do in a way. She's got a little bit saved from when she was living at home, but it won't last forever- it's already starting to dwindle. So she circles positions in the paper, buys a smarter skirt and goes for interviews.

She's starting to take charge of her life, but in a very different way to the way she imagined, and she's discovering more about herself now than she's done all through her childhood and teenage years (well, there wasn't time then, was there, what with all the rebelling that had to be done), and the rails, those rails that she went off suddenly come back and ram right into her. And Martina begins to realise that she wants to walk on them now, because, much as she loves Rog, she doesn't want to end up like him. Nor does she want to end up like her father, forever stuck with gambling debts. If she wants things from life, she wants to _prove_ she deserves to have them, not just take them or fall back on a vice to get her by while they go out of her reach.

She's actually, she realises as she's clearing rubbish out of Roger's front room, becoming _responsible_. It's an odd concept.

She shivers, though she's not sure why.

* * *

'Good stuff, this.' Roger says, mopping gravy from his plate with a piece of bread. 'What did you say it was?'

'Real food?' Martina raises one eyebrow. He's scoffed his portion in record time. He probably hasn't had anything decent to eat since he got thrown out, unless Giselle or one of his other girlfriends (she can't remember all their names) cooked for him at some point.

'You know, I think I might keep yer,' he teases, 'you're quite a handy little stray to have around.'

'And what makes you think you've got a say?' she teases back. 'I'm not budging.'

'And I'm not complainin',' Roger grins. 'You've cleaned this place up a treat, too. You're a little wonder, you are. Very useful.'

Martina's muscles tense. 'Don't say that.'

'Say what?'

She shudders as she repeats the word. '_Useful_. It reminds me o' Mam and Dad.'

'Oh. Sorry.' He leans over the table, squeezing her arm. She shrugs it off. She's here now, she's going to put all that behind her.

'Oh, by the way, I've got some mates comin' round later- doesn't bother you, does it?'

'Course not.'

'Great, pet- 'cause we may be commandeering yer sofa for a bit.'

Martina manages not to make a face. 'All right.'

Wonderful. Where's she supposed to go while her bed's being used for the annual meeting of the drunken louts' society? No, she shouldn't be thinking like that, she reprimands herself. She should be grateful Roger's letting her stay at all. She'll make the most of it- go out or something, and hopefully when she comes back they'll all be gone.

Roger must catch some strange expression crossing her face as she thinks it through, because he frowns at her.

'You sure you're okay, pet?'

She nods, and then hits him with a wry smile. 'Just promise me something.'

'I don't like that look,' Roger says mock-warily, 'what d'you want me ter promise?'

Her smile gets bigger. 'Don't let yer mates get Scotch all over me bed.'

* * *

She wanders around for a while, leaving the flat before Roger's pals can start arriving- much as she adores her brother she's not particularly fond of the sort of people he chooses for friends- breathing in lungfuls of the lead-laden air and not allowing herself to be annoyed that she's effectively been banished for the evening. Roger is entitled to a social life, after all.

Martina ends up going into one of Roger's many favourite pubs- at least there'll probably be someone she vaguely knows there. Rog had brought her in there about a month ago to 'celebrate' the fact that she'd gotten her A-levels, and had been immediately greeted by just about everyone in the little tavern. He'd taken her around to meet a few people, who'd all greeted her warmly (if not perhaps a little lecherously), and though it had been still a few weeks before her eighteenth birthday, no-one had had any qualms about buying her a drink.

She'd stopped at two, though. She's never having more than she can handle, she's decided quite firmly- she never wants to end up in a hospital with a nurse forcing charcoal down her throat again.

Martina steps into the stuffy heat of the pub, shivering even though she's just stepped _out_ of the cold.

It's a little quieter than she remembers- perhaps it's been drained because everyone's gone to Roger's, she thinks bitterly- but a few people are milling around, chatting in small groups.

She makes her way up to the counter, rummaging in her handbag to see if she's got any cash on her.

' 'Tina!' the bartender clearly remembers her; he's smiling at her as though at an old friend. 'No Rog tonight? What can I getcher, sweetheart?'

'_Mar_tina,' she corrects. 'Dry white wine, please.'

'Anything for you,' he winks, and she feels slightly uncomfortable as she winches herself up onto a stool and takes another look around. The bartender could just be being friendly, but she doesn't like it when people smile at her like that, when they say those sorts of things. She's not used to those words, those gestures, apart from when they come out of Roger's mouth. From anyone else, well…they either seem like a trick, a come-on, a way of manipulating her, or false, platitudes, things said to make her feel better, because she really doesn't deserve praise.

She hasn't quite decided which heading she'd categorise the barman under right now. She's too tired to think, really.

'For you, precious.' Talk of the devil. He's returned, brandishing her glass and setting it in front of her. Martina reaches for her purse.

'Nah, sweetheart. On the house.'

Martina narrows her eyes at him. 'I can pay fer meself, you know.'

She doesn't want any chivalry acts. They're almost as bad as pity.

'Consider it a favour to Rog.'

'I thought Rog was constantly gettin' in debt with this place.'

He smiles. 'Martina, if I 'ad kids, he'd 'ave put them through university twice over. He always pays up in the end.'

'Oh.' She's not quite sure what to say to that, where to begin in terms of considering it all, worrying about the implications of that statement.

'So tell me,' he leans forward over the counter, and Martina instinctively shrinks back a little, 'how's the job goin'?'

'Job?'

'Last time you were 'ere you were goin' for an interview- somethin' at the library, weren't it?'

'Why are you askin' me this?' Martina demands, immediately worrying that she has just thwarted a genuine attempt to be friendly with her by acting so defensive. The bartender doesn't seem even the slightest bit put out, though. If anything, his smile gets bigger.

'Part of me job description, sweetheart. You buy a drink, you get a side-order of free grumbling about the miseries in your life, and I can offer you unqualified advice… that and more liquor.'

Martina can't help scoffing. If she wanted to really, and she means _really_ get all her miseries off her chest, she'd basically have to buy every drop that had ever flowed through this bar. She's a little more relaxed, though, now she's realised the man in front of her isn't either cracking onto her or patronising her, is simply doing his job. She allows herself to smile.

'But I didn't buy this,' she settles for saying, jiggling her half-empty glass at him.

'All part of the service, nonetheless. Come on. Vent all the things you hate about work.'

'What is there to vent?' she sighs. 'Didn't get the job. They didn't want me. Nor did the other four places I applied to.'

She's been trying so hard not to see this as a personal rejection. They have to go for the best person, she reminds herself, the most qualified person for the position, and in each case there was probably someone out there with better references or more experience than her. It's got nothing to do with the fact that she's doomed to fail everything, that nobody ever wants her…nothing at all, nothing at…she can feel her face screwing up and forces it back into a neutral, unconcerned expression.

'Ah, don't sweat about them,' says the barman, and she jolts. She'd forgotten about him, caught up for a moment in her own thoughts. 'You're bound to get someth…you 'ave seen our sign, haven't you?'

The sudden change in the direction of the conversation surprises and confuses her.

'Sign?'

He gestures behind him, and Martina notices for the first time a handwritten plaque with 'Help Wanted' scrawled across in felt tip, barely eye-catching among the various posters and pictures advertising beer and cigarette brands. She squints at the sign, blinks, squints and blinks again, because surely he's not saying what she thinks he's saying.

'I don't know the first thing _about_ workin' in a place like this.'

'My guess is you don't know the first thing about workin' in libraries either.'

He has her there. She looks at the sign again. It's not exactly what she wanted to do. Then again, when has anything ever gone right for her anyhow? If she can't get the work she wants, well, a job is a job, isn't it, and she can't keep on being picky if she wants to start helping Roger out with money before he goes bankrupt. At the very least, it can be a temporary measure, until something better comes along, and she'll be making money in the meantime.

She squares her shoulders in a pointless attempt to appear mildly more professional. 'Who do I apply to, then?'

He smiles broadly. 'Me.'

'I 'aven't got a CV with me or anyth…'

'Who even bothers with all that? You'll work 'ard for me, won't yer?'

She nods. She's been quite strict with herself on that note- whatever job she gets, she'll do the best she can at it to make up for her lax attitude all these years, to try and advance herself as much as is humanly possible with what she's got, to ensure she and Rog can _both_ afford to live.

The barman leans over to shake her hand, and Martina smiles back at him.

Oh, she'll work hard, all right.

* * *

'Roger, you'll never believe…'

About half a dozen heads turn to her, and Martina stands frozen in the doorway, slightly embarrassed that the spotlight has been turned on her in this way. She'd expected Roger's mates to have left by now- she'd spent a good few hours in that pub, going over the terms of her employment and the suchlike, and it's got to be heading close to twelve- but here they all are, red-faced from too much drink, a few empty and full bottles both sitting around the room, all of them domiciling her sofa, intruding on her sanctuary. They shouldn't be here- this is just their place, hers and Roger's. Her face is burning, but she finds now it's more from resentment and jealousy than embarrassment.

She shouldn't _be_ resentful and jealous, of course. She realises this instantaneously, but reasoning with herself won't drown out the feeling. She shouldn't be so much as thinking of enforcing any sort of ownership on this place, on claiming any part of it as her own territory. The flat is Roger's, it has been Roger's long before she was ever around, and if he wants to invite others to share his space, well, he's entitled. She's got to stop being so childishly possessive.

She walks awkwardly around the edge of the room, intending to sit in the kitchen until they push off. Most of them are still staring at her. She looks resolutely at her feet as she goes.

'You're a lovely one! Rog ain't told us about you !'

'Yeh, I didn't know Rog had a bird!'

'Bit young for 'im, aren't you?'

'I'll 'ave 'er instead!'

'Oi, knock that off!' comes Roger's voice, and relief collides with Martina like a bowling ball with skittles. 'That's my _sister_ you're talkin' about- and if you say anythin' like that again I'll knock yer block off.'

'I thought she were little!'

'I was picturin' a kid!'

'She was a kid when I first mentioned her nine years ago, use your common sense…'

While they bicker over her age, Martina quietly and gratefully slips from the room.

* * *

She doesn't make herself a cup of tea, even though she's dying for one, because she suspects if she puts the kettle on that lot in there will start yelling for one too, and she's not the least bit inclined to run around after them like a little housemaid. Not only that, they've only got two mugs.

Martina sits at the table instead, running over her conversation with her new employer in her mind. She's not all that excited about working in a pub- it's not exactly a desirable line of work, but there's some money, and if she does work somewhere that Roger frequents, she can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble.

She fiddles with a stray teaspoon that's lying on the table, lightly clinking it as she ponders everything.

The voices of Roger's friends carry through from the next room (Martina suspects everyone in the adjacent flats can probably hear their entire conversation too). She leans forward, resting her head on her arms in an attempt to muffle the din, but to no avail. A semi-drunken laugh filters into her hearing and she groans.

'So tomorrer then?'

'Nah, not tomorrow, it's me day to sign on.'

'Talk sense, you moron, it'll be the evenin'!'

'In that case, yeah, all right.'

If they're planning to have another get-together like this one, Martina won't be happy. She raises her head wearily.

'We'll 'ave ter be careful goin' about this.'

That one's Roger's voice, and he sounds wary. Martina's ears prick up.

'Sod careful,' comes a retort, 'if the bastard government paid us more…'

'Still, if someone saw…'

Whatever they're up to sounds dreadfully unsavoury, and Martina has a good mind to go in there and rescue Roger, drag him out from their midst, but some unseen force rivets her to her seat.

'So, tomorrer, then,' one of the louts says, and immediately their voices all die down into murmurs and she can't make out another word.

She sits there, straining to eavesdrop as she used to when she was a little girl, but try as she might, nothing more is revealed to Martina.

Ten more minutes pass, and then their voices increase in volume once more, goodbyes are slurred and the front door slams five times.

Shortly afterwards Roger's bedroom door creaks on its hinges and slams too, and Martina's left virtually alone in the darkened flat, feeling mildly sick.

* * *

'What were you talkin' about last night?'

Roger eyes her strangely. 'Oh, just this and that, just this and that. We were pretty well hammered. You prob'ly 'eard all sorts o' crap.'

Funny, but they didn't sound particularly 'hammered', as Roger puts it. She knows about 'hammered.' She's seen Roger in that state before, and he's a lot less coherent than that. She clicks her tongue against her bottom teeth. 'Oh, yeah?'

'Look, none o' them would've done anythin' to you, pet, really. They were just a bit surprised ter see you there, that's all.' He stoops to kiss her cheek and wanders off into the next room.

'That's not what I was talkin' ab-' Martina begins, but Roger is already out of earshot.

* * *

She starts work the following week, learning the ropes as quickly as she can. It's quite demanding, really, rushing around after people, telling the drunks very calmly that it's time, that they have to leave because she's closing up, trying not to break things and memorising what combinations make what, but she's glad to be doing something, even if this only turns out to be temporary. She starts to put her affairs in order, sets aside money for rent on Roger's flat, goes down to a bank to make sure the wages she's earning are secure somewhere.

She thinks of how all these years she's never planned for her future, and so she gets a post-office savings account, to which she adds a little now and again, for just in case something ever goes wrong.

Martina feels frightfully different from the girl she was at nine, sculling her brother's moonshine, at thirteen, vocally resenting her family, at fifteen, deliberately messing up her life just for the fun of it.

She's got a whole new lease on life.

She has a _job._

Not the best job one could hope for, but still. It's an honest living.

She has a _bank account_.

It has _money _in it.

Not much, but still. She's living by honest means.

She wonders what her parents would think.

* * *

Martina has about ten minutes until the end of her shift, has given up serving drinks for the day and has turned her few remaining customers over to one of her workmates. She is engaged in drying a glass and planning how she's going to untangle the knot in her apron strings to get it off when someone reaches over and snatches at the glass in her hand. Martina flinches, nearly dropping it, and unleashes her anger on the person responsible.

'Eh! Watch what you're doin'! If you'd broken that they would've docked me wages!'

'Oh,' the young man who disturbed her shrinks back, and Martina can see she's unnerved him. He's a sweet looking lad, really, maybe a year or two older than her, with a trusting sort of face, and she feels just a little regret at having bitten his head off so quickly.

'I'm…I'm sorry,' he says, smiling nervously, 'I just wanted to get your attention.'

Martina's face softens and she sighs. 'Sorry, love, I'm just finishin' up me shift. If you want anythin', Dave over there'll fix you up.'

'No, I just, ah,' he sticks a finger under his collar as if trying to loosen it. 'I just wanted to talk to you.'

Martina frowns. 'Oh. Why?'

'I don't know, I just…I just thought you looked nice is all.'

'Oh,' says Martina again. She doesn't tend to give that general impression. 'I'm not, really.'

A bit blunt, perhaps, and she knows now she sounds like an idiot, but it's such an odd thing for someone to say to her that she doesn't know _how_ to respond. She isn't nice to people, on the whole, and they're not nice to her either. It's not a word that pops up frequently in her day-to-day speech, nor the speech of others discussing her.

'Well, I meant…' he's going quite red now, 'I saw you when I was at the other end of the bar and…you seemed, well, I just think,' even redder, and he's fiddling with his collar again, 'you're, er, very pretty.'

Having finally gotten it out, he pretends to be ferociously interested in a stain on the bar a few inches in front of his arm, and Martina just stands there, her eyes about twice their size.

No-one says things like that- not _meaning_ it, anyway. Douglas from her English class at school had just pushed her against a fence, kissed her and shoved his hand up her skirt without saying a word, and the rest of their relationship had followed accordingly, and the one or two one-night stands she's had since she's moved in with Roger have been much the same, not good for compliments or indeed any kind of talking, and not particularly beneficial to her already fragile self-esteem. Her parents never praised her- they were too busy telling her to get out from under their hair. Roger gives her flattery and praise, but he's Roger- he's biased.

'Oh,' she says finally, feeling stupidly repetitive. 'Er…right.' She pauses, and scrutinises him, trying to work out if he has contacts or cataracts or something. 'Really?'

'Sorry,' says the young man, now ripping a cardboard beer mat into strips, 'I'm not normally forward like that, I just…' he gets up to go and she grabs at his sleeve before she can stop herself.

'No, don't-er, you don't have ter run off,' Martina says hastily. She'd do well to let him go away and stop with this strange and confusing business of being nice to her, but at the same time she doesn't want it to stop. She wonders if people can get addicted to compliments- it only takes one and she's hooked; a flailing fish on the line.

'It was…it was kind o' you ter say so.'

'I wasn't being kind,' he manages to meet her eye and hold her gaze without blushing, which Martina imagines is quite a step forward for him, 'I meant it. Really, I did.'

She bites her tongue a little too hard. 'Thank you.'

It's her turn to feel awkward, and she finds herself tugging at her apron and then folding it as small as possible to try and chase the feeling away.

'Well, I just thought, p'raps, if you'd finished your shift…could I buy you a drink or somethin'?'

'Oh,' Martina says yet again, but this time it's laced with disappointment. 'Thing about that is… I've got a long-standing arrangement, and…'

She squints across the tavern. Roger's sailing around the room, chatting to random acquaintances, spending perhaps ten seconds or less with each one- a sure sign that he's impatient. It's the first night in weeks he hasn't disappeared somewhere, and they've been making all sorts of plans of what they're going to do once Martina's finished work for the evening.

Then, she'd been looking forward to it. Now…well, she almost finds herself _regretting_ her previous engagement with her brother. That's never happened before.

She glances from Rog to her new friend, horribly torn.

The man looks a bit crestfallen.

Martina's desperately trying to think of something to say that can somehow magically rectify the situation when he speaks again, the nervous smile returning.

'Some other time, then?'

'Yes, of course!' Martina says far too quickly, and then kicks herself. Now she just looks pathetic.

'Would it be in order for me to get your name?'

_Would it be in order_. His politeness is adorable. She's never encountered anyone so considerate- in the circles she moves in, anyone like this would probably get beaten down in a day or two. It makes her wonder what someone like him might be doing here, in an establishment that, much as she's grateful for a job in it, can't exactly be called reputable, but she brushes the thought away like a fly. She's been dropped a little miracle, been presented with the sort of person she thought only existed in fiction, and hers is not to question why.

She finds herself blushing and looking down as she tells him her name- something she'd usually slap herself for. Martina is not that sort of person; she doesn't giggle and she doesn't simper and she most certainly does not act all coy because someone asks her name.

But when he repeats it, somehow making it sound lovely when he draws it from his lips, a funny shaky feeling goes right through her.

'Pretty name, that.'

'Is it?' That's twice in one day now that she's heard that word _pretty_. It's too much, she can't take this level of…of whatever it is. Martina's hesitant to use the word flattery- she has _been_ flattered once or twice by customers trying to get something from her, usually a free or cheaper beverage, but that seems different somehow. Phony. Not so genuine, nor so sweet. She's floundered again.

'Yours?' she ends up asking, avoiding having to think too hard on the compliment, and when he tells her it's Gav, she finds herself telling him that that's quite nice too, feeling like a complete prat as she does.

Gav doesn't seem to notice her embarrassment- he's practically shining at the fact that she's talking to him.

'So, 'Tina…'

'_Mar_tina,' she snaps, with a little more venom than she'd intended. Only Roger can get away with calling her 'Tina. Coming from anyone else's mouth, well…it repulses her. It rubs her up the wrong way. She's not even sure why.

She sees the look on his face and instantly regrets her tone. She's all right with being horrible to people who'll hurt her without batting an eyelid, who'll put her down or ignore her, but she's never upset someone decent and honest before. Come to think of it, she hasn't really _met_ anyone decent and honest at all before. She works herself up to force a smile, but finds it comes without much coaxing.

That's a bit odd. Normally only Roger can make her smile naturally.

Gav seems encouraged, and presses on.

'Are you here often?'

She shrugs. 'Most days.'

'And is there any chance I might…see you 'round here again?'

'You might,' Martina replies, letting a smirk settle onto her face. It's her favourite expression, is the smirk- easier to pull off than a smile, not quite so heavy as a frown, and very _her_. She wishes she had more occasion to use it- normally Roger is its only audience.

Gav returns it, opening his mouth to respond.

'You comin', 'Tina?' Roger calls from across the bar, waving her coat about. She rolls her eyes, tries to signal past Gav's head for him to go away. She'll come when she's ready to, thanks very much.

'Listen,' Gav begins, and she turns her attention back to him, trying to keep her hopeful excitement carefully concealed behind her usual mask. This is no time to get soppy- now her initial fluster is starting to die down she's trying to assess him as he talks to her, work out whether he's worth wasting time on. He seems perfectly lovely- but Martina doesn't fancy herself the best judge of character, especially as she looks back on all the people she's chosen as friends over the years. She's certainly not going to be too hasty, and she's certainly not going to leap to the conclusion that something good might be about to happen. Every time she jumps too soon, she misses the boat and falls in the water. No, she's going to be careful, bide her time, think on it.

'When's your day off?' Gav goes on. 'It's just, I've been thinkin'…'

Martina plays it cool, lets the smirk make another appearance, raises on eyebrow.

'Oh yeah?'

'If, perhaps…'

A hand comes down on her head.

' 'Tina?'

Oh, no. _For goodness' sake!_

Martina's head snaps round, and she glares at her inconsiderate, interrupting, _intruding _brother.

Roger seems unfazed. 'Martina, are you plannin' on comin' 'ome any time soon?'

She increases the intensity of her glare.

'Roger,' she mutters, trying hard to keep her teeth grinding in annoyance, 'go away.'

Gav looks understandably confused. 'Who's this?'

'What, 'asn't she told you?' Rog asks, leaning over the bar and putting his arm right round her shoulders. 'Mar-_tina_. Are you ashamed of our love?'

Oh, Roger is going to _suffer_ when this is over.

'It's just me brother,' she explains apologetically to Gav, jerking her head in Roger's direction and not-so-discreetly shoving an elbow into his forearm, 'he seems ter be makin' it 'is life's mission ter ruin mine.'

Roger's arm abruptly drops from around her, but Martina's focussing more on the fact that Gav is looking significantly relieved. He smiles at her again.

'No need to explain, love. We've all got ones like that. Me sister's the same.'

Not the same as Roger, she's sure. If only he knew…still. He's being very understanding, and extremely patient, considering Rog is still standing there, putting a taint on the atmosphere. He might just be being polite now, she suspects, having lost interest after all the embarrassment, but at least he isn't flat-out running for the hills, and for that Martina offers up a silent prayer of thanks.

'I'd better go,' she says, rising and yanking her coat out of her brother's grasp, 'I'd better get 'im home, but, listen, it was…lovely…talkin' to yer…' It's probably one of the nicest things she's said to a stranger in a long time, and it's not particularly sickeningly sweet, but it still leaves a strange taste in Martina's mouth.

'Likewise,' says Gav, 'and it'll be lovely talkin' to you again, I hope.'

That's if there is an _again_. For the first time in her life, she finds herself resenting her brother just a little.

* * *

_'Roger!_' she kicks him in the shins as soon as they're safely out of the pub and on their way home. 'Just what did you think you were doin'?'

'What did you mean, _it's me life's mission ter ruin yours_?' Roger asks sullenly. Martina turns to him, and is surprised out of her mind to see he's actually brooding, has actually got his arms crossed in a sulk.

She groans. 'Oh, _Rog_, _honestly_! You didn't really think I meant that, did yer?'

'Well you _know_ I worry about that, pet, when I think back ter the times when I-'

Martina throws her head back and groans again, louder and longer, letting her frustration out through her teeth.. '_For goodness' sake!_ 'ow many times do I 'ave ter tell yer- I don't- I just- I just _meant_ I was annoyed, Rog! Because _you_ were so 'ellbent on embarrassin' me, _that's all I meant by it!'_

Roger's sulk starts to disappear, and Martina takes advantage of this, now feeling comfortable enough to unleash her temper on him for his behaviour this evening.

'I mean, standin' there with yer arms all over me, askin' if I was 'ashamed of our love'! What chance do I ever 'ave if you keep doin' that?'

'Oh, he _obviously_ fancied you, pet. If you don't 'ear from 'im again, I'll be surprised.'

Martina scoffs. 'If I _do, I'll_ be surprised.'

'Ten quid says he'll be back again.'

'Fifteen says 'e won't.'

'You're on then,' says Rog, reaching over to shake her hand, and then he pauses, arm outstretched.

Martina doesn't need to be a mind-reader to know what he's thinking. The exact same thing's just occurred to her.

'D'you think this is how Dad started off?' she asks quietly.

Roger withdraws his hand, wipes it on his jacket, even though they haven't shaken.

'Doesn't bear thinkin' about, does it?'

* * *

As it turns out, Gav does turn up the next day, and works up the nerve within minutes to ask her to dinner the following night. And Martina's relief at Rog not having screwed it up is such that she accepts at once, forgetting her plan of thinking long and hard on it before making any decisions.

What harm can it possibly do, anyway? He's sweet- it'd more likely for a bus to plough into her than for Gav to do anything cruel. If anyone's going to be doing the hurting in this relationship, if this does indeed go anywhere, she has the feeling it would most likely be her. She doesn't think on it now, though- dinner is just dinner, she doesn't have to start worrying about long-term problems before it's even _reached_ a long-term state in her life.

Gav's shyness is quick to disappear once they've sat down to eat, and the conversation comes easily, Gav sharing plenty of things about himself and Martina giving him the heavily edited versions of a few details about her, feeling that somehow mentioning alcoholism, gambling, rebellion and leaving home and all her miserable feelings in between might be a bit of a sour note on a first date. It doesn't really matter, though, that she doesn't say much, because Gav talks enough for the both of them and keeps her thoroughly entertained.

It turns out he's a bookkeeper for somewhere or other (Martina tries not to be jealous that he has a better job than her), has a sister who, despite his comment the other night sounds nothing at all like Roger, and is even less shy by the time three hours have passed, to the extent that he's perfectly happy to take her hand as they're leaving the restaurant, turn her to face him and kiss her.

Martina freezes for a moment, worrying that it's all too fast, that she might be taking a running leap into another pit of pain, then shrugs it off and lets him. She's been sort of happy this evening, and that doesn't happen all that often. She's got to grab her happiness where she can.

'Where's my ten quid?' Roger teases when she returns home, humming, her mouth sore from kisses and her stomach full to bursting from a fairly extravagant meal.

Martina snatches the newspaper from his hand and cuffs him on the back of the head with it.

* * *

'Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine.'

'You say that now,' Martina says flatly. She doesn't know _how_ Gav's managed to talk her into this. Yes, she's met _his_ family (and that was bad _enough_, she didn't make a good impression) but she doesn't see why that demands a return visit. She doesn't _want_ to bring him home, doesn't want him to see how she lives, to meet Roger. He knows she lives with her brother and not her parents, but she hasn't told him why- and she certainly hasn't told him any specifics. It makes her churn inside, the idea that she might be _ashamed_ of the one person who has always been there for her, but, well, she...no. No. She's not _ashamed_, she just…she doesn't think Gav would understand, that's all. Barely anyone understands Roger, except her. They'd be bound to look at him and see his condition, and not the man underneath.

And now Gav's been insisting that he wants to meet her brother, after she's spoken so highly of him (by which he means she's made a few vague comments about loving him in between his reels and reels of conversation about his own life), and they're standing in front of the door to Rog's flat and Martina's wishing that a comet would crash into the earth to stop this.

She knocks, calls, but no-one answers.

She jams her own key into the lock and swings the door open, preparing for the worst.

Martina sighs as she looks around. The flat isn't as bad as she'd thought- over the months she's been staying here she's managed to almost eradicate the smell of stale whiskey, (except for in Roger's room, which she's been told she's not allowed to enter) she's cleaned it, tidied it and made it look reasonably respectable, a far cry from the squalid hole she'd entered when she first ran away. It's not as fancy as Gav's house, but there's nothing he can turn his nose up at, not that he would.

So far so good- now if Roger can just turn up sober, she'll be giving prayers of thanks and praise for the rest of her life.

'Rog!' she calls.

No answer.

She calls again, with the same result. She crosses over to his bedroom door and knocks. Still no answer.

'_Roger!_'

'What's this?'

She turns, and Gav's holding a crumpled piece of paper.

'Where'd you find that?'

'Coffee table.'

Martina reaches her arm out and takes it.

There are two words scrawled across it. _Gone out_.

Martina drops it to the ground. Roger has disappeared again.

Something floods her, but she's not sure what emotion it is.

'That's a shame,' says Gav.

Martina looks at him for a while, cocks her head to one side, and then crosses the room in one stride and kisses him.

She's identified the emotion. It should have been annoyance- Roger _knew_ she was bringing Gav home this evening- but it's not.

It's relief.

'It's not a shame,' she whispers, kissing him again. 'It means we're alone.'

If Roger realises what happened, when he returns home late the next morning and finds her languishing on the sofa looking dreamy, he refrains from commenting.

And in turn, she doesn't tell him off for disappearing.

* * *

Gav's a nice enough bloke, Martina will give him that. He's friendly, chatty, and Martina enjoys teasing him, enjoys even more the feeling of being desired by someone other than her brother for a change, and not having to work almost beyond her capacity to try and earn that. It's utterly refreshing, and she savours it, loving the fact that for once, someone she's seeing seems actually interested in her mind rather than just what's up her skirt. He gives her presents, buys her coffee and dinner, phones her up sometimes _just because he wants to hear her voice_, and it's lovely, just lovely.

But at the same time Martina knows it can't last.

There's just nothing to keep them together, really. When they talk, they talk about him, mostly. Martina's not comfortable sharing things with him other than surface details. She hasn't told him about any of the hardships in her life, nor about her strange relationship with her brother, nor about any of her insecurities, because she knows he wouldn't understand. He's such a happy, uncomplicated person, whose biggest problem in life seems to be the fact that sometimes things get a little bit dull- to even try to explain herself to him would be disastrous, and she just can't picture herself exposing such a cheery, simple little man to any of her dark, twisted, writhing inner self. So she _oh_-s and _yeah_-s while Gav tells her anecdote after anecdote, occasionally teasing or asking another question every time the subject threatens to shift to her, and finds herself feeling that they're never going to get past the starting point.

And though Martina's flattered by the attention, by the way he seemingly adores her, she's well aware that flattery does not a romantic connection make. She needs more than that. She's not sure she _deserves_ more than that, isn't sure she even deserves what she has, but all the same, she knows that at some point this thing has to finish.

Their relationship manages to string out three months, the two of them enjoying each other's company well enough, and while it still seems so casual and simple, much like Gav's personality, Martina deludes herself into thinking there's not much harm in it, deferring breaking it off and allowing herself one more day of being liked, then one more, then one more.

But when, one evening, Gav takes both her hands in his, kisses her and says, with great feeling, _I think love you_, _you know,_ Martina knows she can't do this anymore.

The look on his face when she tells him it's over is like the flick of a penknife over her chest. She's hurt people before, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes deliberately, often cruelly, but they've always been fully deserving of the pain in her eyes- total bastards, scoundrels, cheats or just unnecessarily unkind to her. She's never shattered someone this sweet, this innocent before.

He's completely stunned, disbelieving that a declaration of love could be met with such a callous remark. An array of pathetic platitudes spring to Martina's mind, most notably _it's not you, it's me_, and in truth it probably _is_ her, but she can't bring herself to say it. She just knows that letting him down lightly will, in all probability, be the thin end of the wedge, that if he shows any sign of not wanting to give her up she'll take him back just for that feeling of being desired, and she can't do that. She won't. This is done.

It's better if he writes her off as heartless and is done with it.

So she flicks her cruel switch, and, with a stone face, tells him flatly that she doesn't care for him.

* * *

'You sure you don't wanna come down the pub with me?'

'It's me night off, Roger- d'you really think I wanna go to work on the one day a week I get _away_ from it?'

'I'm not _goin'_ there- found a new joint the other week. Decent stuff- bit cheaper, too.'

'Don't feel like goin' out.' Martina tugs her blanket up to her chin, only for her brother to grab the other end and pull it off her.

'Come on, pet. It'll beat sitting around 'ere feeling sorry for yerself.'

'I'm not sittin' around feelin' sorry fer meself!' Martina says, disgruntled, even though yes, that is precisely what she's been doing for the past few days.

Roger shakes his head at her. 'Oh, c'mon, pet, it'll do you good! Bit o' fresh air, new surroundings, drink or two…'

'Pass.' She turns away from him, burying her face into the dingy fabric of the sofa. Roger gives up.

'Well, if you change yer mind, I'll be there for about an hour, then I've got some…er, business.'

'What business?' she asks, getting a mouthful of cushion.

'Just business business. I'm off now. Oh, and if me mate James calls, don't take any messages from 'im, just say I'm out, okay?'

'Okay,' she mumbles, curious about why she's not allowed to hear whatever message this James has for Roger, but not caring quite enough to ask at this exact moment in time.

The front door clicks closed and Martina devotes a few minutes to sitting around, feeling sorry for herself (Roger need never know) before dozing off.

* * *

The phone rings at half past one.

Martina struggles to sit up, grizzling, and glances around. Roger's one and only coat is missing from the hook; he's still out on whatever _business_ he'd mentioned earlier. She drags herself across the room and picks up the receiver.

'He's not 'ere, James,' she recites dutifully, her voice thick and milky with sleep.

'Martina, can we talk about this?'

The voice is such a shock that she literally jumps, the phone leaping from her hand and clattering onto the floor.

It's not Roger's mate James, after all.

She pulls herself hastily together, though her heart's betraying her, thumping out an unsteady rhythm as she retrieves the phone and puts it back to her ear.

'…and I don't know why you would, so if it's something I've done…' Gav rambles on, apparently unaware he's been talking to no-one for a minute or two.

Martina tortures herself by listening to him jabber for a while, feeling her chest contract at the sound of his voice, and then shoves the receiver firmly down.

She gets no sleep after that.

Roger comes back at five, just as the sun is beginning to rise, sees she's awake and garbles something at her about telling somebody-or-other he was here all night, yanks the curtains shut, bolts the door and stalks off into his room.

Martina stares after him, her painful phone call from her ex forgotten as she sets her mind to worrying about her older sibling.

* * *

'Where do you go all the time?' Martina wonders aloud one evening, sitting on the floor in front of Roger's sofa while he lays across it with a newspaper over his face.

'Where don't I go?' Roger returns. He's being evasive, she can tell.

'I know you're up ter no good,' she presses.

'And that's probably why it's better you don't know anything more,' he replies.

It's a strange, cryptic response, but Martina lets it be for the time being.

* * *

'Rack me up another,' the sweaty bloke at the bar says, sliding his glass over to Martina so fast she only just stops it falling off the other side of the counter. 'I need it. I've 'ad an 'ell of a day.'

'Oh, you 'ave, 'ave yer?' Martina mutters under her breath, rolling her eyes as she sticks the glass under the tap. This always happens, and she doesn't like it one bit. The idiots who come in here just love to moan to her about their problems- as if she doesn't have any of her own to contend with. As if she cares. As if she has a licence to counsel tortured souls, not a licence to serve liquor (and she's not even sure that's genuine).

'I've 'ad three rows with me wife today alone- three! _And_ me bloody kids are always whingeing, and I've 'ad yet another pay cut…'

Martina, bored, slams the new drink in front of him and states the price.

'_And_ the cost o' livin's goin' up,' he grumbles, fishing in his wallet.

Oh, three rows, Martina thinks, how _tragic_. Back in the day, when they all lived at home, there'd be about three rows an _hour_ if her Dad or Rog had spent more than they should have on their respective vices. Oh, he has such a terrible life, with a _wife_ and _kids_, Martina thinks, a wistful image of Gav popping into her head which she shoves away.

Oh, and a _paycut_. He probably still earns more than she does, even so.

It's pathetic, the way these people carry on- and the way they expect her to be _sympathetic_ too. The whining and droning just makes her want to grind her teeth, not offer consolation or advice.

This isn't what she signed up for. She'd wanted to make a living for herself, to support herself and her brother and feel she was doing something even vaguely worthwhile, so she didn't have to write her life off as wasted and having achieved nothing. She'd wanted to earn enough to live on but not feel too overloaded by the tasks set for her.

Why is it nothing can just work for her? Why can't anything just _go right_, just _be simple_?

She should be the one saying _rack me up another_.

* * *

'What've you got there?' Roger asks, flinging open the front door at four in the morning and finding her cross-legged on the sofa, picking her way through a box of Valentine's chocolates and trying to work out which are the good ones without consulting the chart. Charts are patronising, she thinks. As if people can't tell the difference between different-shaped sweets. She takes a bite out of one she's ninety per cent sure is caramel, only to find it's actually marzipan. Ugh. It tastes like the one Christmas cake she remembers her mother ever cooking, and there aren't nice memories attached to that.

She eats it anyway, out of stubbornness.

Roger makes a dive for the box, and she swings it round, holding it out to him while he rummages.

'Where're the pictures?'

'In the fireplace.' Along with the note that had come with them, which had read _please give us another chance._

'Bloody 'ell, 'Tina! How'm I supposed to tell which one's which?'

'You use yer brain.' She plucks another one out, and it turns out to be liquorice. Much better.

Roger takes three at random, jumps onto the sofa, breaking yet another of the springs, and settles down beside her to eat them. 'Who're these from, anyway?'

'Gav.'

'I thought you weren't seein' 'im anymore.'

'I'm not. But I don't see any reason why I shouldn't 'ave the presents 'e bought me anyway.' It's part of her campaign to keep him thinking she's heartless, for his own good. He's been trying too hard to win her back, refusing to think she's at all at fault and instead blaming his own shortcomings- not that he actually has any. She's trying to hammer the message home that he deserves better.

Roger laughs. 'You are a cruel woman, Martina McKenna. You should work down the DHSS. They'd love you. Heartbreaker.'

Martina rolls her eyes. 'And put up with a lot of whining idiots, complainin' to me about housin' lists and leaks in the roof and bein' out o' work? What joy.' She gets enough complaints like that down the pub- but at least they want drinks from her, not money, and they pay for it all.

'Well, you'd be good at it, believe you me.' Rog snags another chocolate, stuffs it in his mouth and immediately spits it out. 'Oh, that's it, I'm gettin' the chart.'

'You do that,' Martina says, a sing-song ring to her voice, and for the next fifteen minutes she's entertained by the sight of her brother trying to fish what's left of the chocolate chart from the fire, trying not to get it and him completely burnt in the process.

* * *

They do have some laughs, some good times, but Roger's changing, and Martina can't help but notice. He's jumpy more often than not these days, twitches when someone knocks at the door, even if it's just a friend who has come to visit or someone delivering takeaway. He's been disappearing at night since she first moved in, but on average she'd still get three or four evenings a week with him, not to mention most of the day.

Nowadays she's lucky to see him a couple of times a fortnight, and when he does come home, he's so edgy and distracted he's practically no company at all. He spends hours in his room, and she can hear him clunking and crashing around.

And she has a sneaking suspicion he's not just drinking in there. She remembers all too clearly the conversations between him and his mates, plotting- at least five times now she's walked in on them all whispering and stopping as soon as they notice she's there, and it sets her teeth on edge, the thought that Roger might be involved in some sort of criminal activity that he's not letting on about.

She has a good mind to ask him about it, to demand he tell her what's really going on. She pushes into his room one night, intent on doing so, only to find him sprawled on his bed, clutching an empty bottle to him as if it were his teddy bear. He looks so childlike, such a loveable scruff that Martina just can't _think_ of him doing anything like that. She sighs, kisses his forehead and leaves him to sleep.

* * *

Martina's sleeping fitfully, tossing and turning as much as the space on the sofa will allow when hands grab hold of her shoulders, shake her violently.

'What's going on?' she mumbles, cracking her eyes open. Roger's standing over her, a look of wild panic on his face.

' 'Tina,' he hisses, '_wake up. Now.'_

'What's going on?' she repeats, sitting up, alert now.

A loud banging sounds at the door and they freeze. Martina can feel her heart going like a bloody jackhammer. Who would be knocking like that at this hour? It couldn't be the landlord- Martina's been taking care of the rent, and has never missed a single payment- who, then? Police? Thugs Roger has ticked off somehow?

She's shivering uncontrollably now. Roger grabs her hand tightly in his.

'C'mon, pet. Come with me.'

She doesn't want to move, wants to stay here until she's woken up and discovered this is actually a dream, but Roger continues to tug at her, to insist it's urgent, that she has to get up, _this instant_.

Martina examines him. He's afraid, she could have spotted that a mile off, but over the worried expression on his face is superimposed a layer of brotherly concern. And though Martina doesn't know what he's gotten himself into, though she doesn't know what wicked deeds he might have recently done, though she doesn't know he doesn't _deserve_ whatever wrath is trying to reach him, Roger is Roger.

And she trusts him.

She lets him pull her off the sofa, drag her behind it to hide while the banging at the door continues and while a frightening voice shouts Roger's name over and over, and while shadows appear at the windows, someone trying to see inside the flat.

They huddle together there for hours, still and dead silent and wrapped around each other, not daring to move a muscle even after the knocking ceases, the yelling subsides and the shadows shrink away from the window.

Martina doesn't know _how_ she manages to fall asleep, given the circumstances, but when she wakes she's in the same position, cradled in Roger's arms, her head on his shoulder, her brother clutching her as if she might be snatched away from him at any moment.

* * *

'Maybe you should go back to Mam and Dad,' Roger says the next morning, staring out of the window at the grimy streets below.

Something inside Martina runs cold. 'Are you kickin' me out?'

'No, no, _never_, pet! You've got a home here as long as you want it, it's just…' he puts his head in his hands, 'you deserve to be with people who are better for you. I'm a terrible influence.'

'I thought we established,' Martina says, coming up beside him, resting her forehead against him, 'that I don't care about that.'

'I'm dragging you through the mud.'

Martina rolls her eyes at his dramatics. She kisses his collarbone. 'What's brought this on? What've you done this time?'

Roger shakes his head, shakes her off. 'Nothing. Nothing. Just…everything.'

He sighs, goes back to staring into nothingness.

* * *

The trouble is, now she's living with him, now it's just the two of them, she can see it so much more clearly. He is, actually, pretty terrible. He wasn't lying about that.

The nighttime visits continue, and at least three times a week Martina is dragged from her bed to hide.

And then there's the alcohol as well. She's getting fed up with it.

She attempts to keep a reasonably civilised sort of routine, cleans the flat daily, and every day a whole heap of empty whiskey bottles tumbles out of some new hiding place. The sheer number of them astounds her. She's always known he must have a supply somewhere, but he's got nearly an entire _bottle shop_ stashed around his place. It can't be good for him to need this much. And that's not to mention how much it must all cost. Roger's practically _broke-_ if it weren't for his giro he'd be in the gutter, and though the Social Security do have allowances for rent, or so she's heard, she pays the landlord each month with some of her own savings, because she knows that that allowance is probably being invested straight into the till at the nearest Oddbins.

She thinks about how, as a child, he'd encouraged her to do the wrong things. She thinks about how, when she was younger, everything dreadful he did made her laugh. It doesn't anymore. Not now she's older, not now she's got responsibilities and burdens on her shoulders, and he's one of them. She's grown up so much in this past year or so. She'd been envisioning running away and having a happy, carefree life with Roger since he was kicked out, but the amount of freedom they have, ironically, is a limitation. Roger's lack of responsibility has forced her to shoulder as much as she can. She'd imagined he'd look after her, but, in reality, it's she who looks after him.

She doesn't admire him anymore. In fact, she's sort of…_disgusted_.

There is no-one else, _no-one else_ who she'd ever even consider liking if they behaved even slightly like this. And if she met Roger now, if they weren't related, she's one hundred per cent certain she wouldn't like him, wouldn't associate with him.

But he's her brother.

And she loves him.

And he loves her.

And that's enough to keep her putting up with all the discarded whiskey bottles, with the unwelcome midnight visits and the rowdy laughter of the lecherous-looking thugs Rog claims are his 'friends'. Because there's no-one else, _no-one else_ in this world who's ever loved her the way Roger has. Though his gestures of love are generally terrible (really, a glass of Scotch for a nine-year-old?) he's doing what in his skewed, warped mind he thinks will please her, what he thinks will prove he loves her and wants to spend time with her. And she's not going to throw that away.

* * *

Sometimes, though, it gets hard not to give up on him.

Very.

About six months after Gav, she's all but swept off her feet by Christopher- swarthy, attractive and devilish, and also an unconscionable bastard by anyone's standards. They don't even get to the five week mark before he tires of her, openly leaving her for another woman whom he brings down the pub and quite unashamedly kisses in front of her, and Martina, pretending not to watch him, just despairs. He was by no means a good man, like Gav, but Martina had thought maybe it could have been love, and to get slapped in the face with the lies and the rejection and the true nature of the man is more than she can cope with.

She's no good at this game.

She throws away a perfectly lovely man, one who would have treated her so well, one who she could have been happy with on the whole, despite not loving him or being able to tell him anything, and then she puts herself on the line for the sort of fiend who misuses her for a bit of fun.

She's never going to get it right. It's just like every other sort of relationship she tries- family, friends, anything- there's something about her that bars her from forming the right sort of connections with people. She's jinxed, she thinks sadly.

She comes home that night to no Roger, what's more- he's out on one of his mysterious late-night jaunts once again; she'll find no comfort there- and in a fit of desperation she goes into his room and gets drunk on his whiskey.

Roger finds her there, an hour later, sitting on his bed sobbing with a half-drunk bottle in her hand, and she looks up at him with tear-blurred eyes, remembering the way he would come and console her when she was a child and her parents or friends made her feel unwanted, aching for the same sort of treatment now.

But what she sees in Roger's face isn't sympathy or compassion. It's undisguised fury.

'What the hell do you think you're doin' in 'ere?!' He wrests the bottle from her grasp, looks at it, horrified. 'How much've you 'ad?!'

Even in this state she has the presence of mind to roll her eyes.

' 'm a big girl, Rog, 'm not gon' 'ave ter go ter 'ospital anymore.'

'I'm _aware_ you can 'old yer alcohol now, Martina! What I don't understand is what you think gives you the right ter come in 'ere and nick me bloody Scotch!'

Martina doesn't believe it. After all she's been through, after all they've ever been through together, that's the only thing he can think of. That's the only thing he cares about.

'You- _what_?!' she shrieks, grabbing his pillow and thwacking him with it, partially glad and partially sorry it wasn't something harder and heavier that came to hand. 'In case you di'n notice, _Roger_, 'm _depressed!_'

'You _know_ h'much whiskey _costs_ these days!' Roger shouts back. Neither of them are particularly articulate- sounds like he's had a few too many, too.

'I _do_ know, _yeah_! Y' spend everythin' you _get_ on it- _I_ 'ave ter pay all the bills!'

'You sound like Dad!'

'No, _you_ sound like Dad!' she yells at him, 'always _wastin'_ yer money!' she hits him again with the pillow, and he jerks it out of her hand and thumps her back.

'An' another thing- I _told_ you not ter come into me room, _didn't I?_'

'Yeah, and _why not_, we ask ourselves!' Martina attempts a dry laugh, but it hits the hysterical mark instead, 'prob'ly 'cause you're _up ter no good_, and you're 'idin' all yer…yer…yer _up to no good_ stuff in there!'

Roger thrusts a pointed finger towards the door. '_Get out o' my room!'_

'All _right_, then!' she gets up off the bed, stumbling out and slamming the door in his face.

How dare he? She can't believe he'd value a couple of pathetic bottles of whiskey and a few juvenile secrets over his own sister. That's not the Roger she knows. And she'd really wanted the loving, caring one tonight. She's got enough to be upset over without him starting on her over nothing, _thank you very much_.

Martina takes a few dizzying steps in the vague direction of the sofa, but it's too much effort to get all the way over there and instead she crashes onto the disgusting carpet and spends the night there, unsure whether she's crying over her heartbreak with her ex or the fact that everything she's ever thought about her brother- and not just him, about everything- seems to be wrong.

* * *

By the next morning it all seems all right. Roger's cheery when he gets up, ruffles her hair and gleefully steals the toast from her plate, and Martina is relieved to see the brother she knows and loves back again.

But as he walks off into the other room, her eyes follow him, and her mouth twists. How can he act as if nothing had happened at all?

She tries to put the incident from her mind, but it creeps back at times, filling her to the brim with worry. Does Roger even remember what transpired? How many more episodes like that is she in for?

He never apologises for that night.

* * *

Around a year after she gets her first job, working in the pub begins to both bore and tire her. She's not cut out for it, she thinks, all that rushing about and balancing things on trays and trying to pour and catch glasses and avoid brawls- it's flustering to the point that she's always forgetting something, always getting something wrong. And, to be quite frank, she'd do anything to get away from those whingers and their never-ending stream of problems, which they project at her from over the bar as they slurp down their beer. She's had _more_ than enough of that.

She needs a more rewarding, more stable job, one which involves a desk and proper breaks and regular hours, not shifts- and one with better wages. Roger's getting through the housekeeping by Wednesday now- his addiction seems to have increased, he's bringing home enormous crates of Scotch every day and running up equally enormous _I.O.U.-s _that Martina just knows the pubs are going to start enforcing soon. She has to get something that _pays_, and soon.

She's got A-levels, after all. She should be able to do better than this.

So she begins to circle ads in papers again, and drafts out a letter of resignation. It's probably a stupid thing to do, considering she works in an establishment that wouldn't care if she just walked out the door hollering _stick it_, but Martina's nothing if not thorough. When she burns bridges, she likes to do it properly.

'Do something that'll get you the sack,' Roger suggests when she tells him. 'You'll get severance pay that way.'

Martina ignores him. That's not her style. It might have been, say, when she was fifteen, but not now.

She's looking at office jobs now, reliable work, the sort of thing she can dress smartly for. She could be a secretary, she thinks, a clerk, a receptionist, someone who keeps books. She could do that well enough- after all, how hard can it be to write things out all day? Not that any of them particularly strike her as a wonderful way of making a living, but she's never expected to amount to much, and anything's got to be better than her current position. At least with something like that, she could just barely pass off as respectable- and she wouldn't have to listen to the woeful saga of every single one of her patrons.

That she will not miss.

* * *

'How 'bout this one? Saleswoman in a department store: full time, hours nine to five, must be over fifteen, well that's no problem- here's what they're paying…'

Roger holds out the advertisement for Martina to see. She shakes her head.

'I'm not workin' on me feet all day puttin' hats on women's 'eads fer _that_ kind o' money. What else 'ave you found?'

His eyes scour the jobs' section and skim a couple more ads.

'Cleaner?'

The words of one of Martina's teachers come back to her. _You'll be sweeping floors for a living._ Well, not if she can help it, thanks.

'Hmm, moving on.'

'Waitressing sound good to you?'

'I told you, Roger, I want an office job.'

'Can't see any o' those in 'ere, I'm afraid, pet- oh, hold on. Here's one that's _sort of_ what you want- dental receptionist. Pays a bit better, too.'

'Well that's a possible. Tear that one out for me. Anythin' else?'

Roger has another skim. 'Aha! This one's _right_ up your street, 'Tina!'

She sits up a bit straighter, suddenly a bit hopeful despite how many times she's told herself not to feel this way ever again.

'What is it?'

'You'd be at a desk- closest thing to an office job here, pet- five days a week, hours are okay, and you'd be working as a civil servant so there'd be a bit of,' he snickers here, she's not sure why, 'respect and authority, pay's not quite so good as the dental receptionist one but it's better than what you'd get from the pub…'

That sounds just about perfect. The 'civil servant' bit throws her, though. She's always imagined civil servants to be quite capable people, and she doesn't feel capable- not in the least.

'But what _is_ it, though?' she demands.

Roger raises his eyebrows, an odd smile on his face. 'DHSS clerk.'

Martina's disappointed. No wonder he'd laughed when he'd said _respect and authority. _ From what she's heard, the opposite is true.

'I thought you said it was a good job.'

'Did I? I said it was up your street.'

'And what makes you think I want ter spend me life handin' out money to scroungers? If memory serves me correctly, we've 'ad this conversation before.'

'But you'd be so good at dashin' people's hopes- just try saying this line: _on yer bike._ Go on. You'd sound the part, believe me!'

'I don't think so. Next,' says Martina dismissively, and only then realises the irony.

* * *

It turns out the dental receptionist's position is filled by the time she gets there, rendering her efforts to dress smartly, her entire night's work making out a decent CV and her nerves and crossed fingers totally useless. She doesn't even get as far as an interview. It would be easy to stalk off in a strop, and Martina's has the right mind to, but that would be unlike her, and so she walks down the street with composure, doing her utmost to rein in her sense of failure. She's not even good enough to try out for things anymore, she thinks, let alone be considered for them.

Maybe she should have applied for that cleaner's job. That's all she's good for.

Oh, well. She sighs heavily, her shoulders dropping. She'll have another look in the paper tomorrow, and maybe if some unprecedented stroke of luck hits her she'll find _something_…

'Martina!'

Martina's nearly knocked down as Roger barrels into her, out of breath and sweating through the underarms of his shirt.

'Rog! What are you doin'?'

' 'Tina, I'm glad I ran into you…are you okay, sweetheart?'

She digs her fingernails into her palm. Is it that obvious she's upset?

'Didn't get the job.'

'Aw, hey. Shame, that, pet.' He kisses her hair. 'I know you're not happy, 'Tina…'

_When am I ever?_ She refrains from saying this aloud.

'…but I would really appreciate a favour, if you've got the time.'

She throws her arms up, letting them drop to her side. 'Oh, I've got _time_, Rog. I've got all the time in the world! I don't ave a job ter fill it, do I? What would I be doin' otherwise? I…'

'You're bitter, I get the point,' Roger says, putting a hand on her arm to cut her off. 'Look, I'm runnin' late, pet, and I was supposed ter sign-on, but if I go now I won't 'ave time fer…' he stops abruptly. 'Well, I'll be even later. Can you go down the DHSS and see if they'll let yer do it on me behalf?'

Martina's eyebrows meet. 'Roger, I don't think that'll work- and anyway, I've made a vow never to go ter that pl-'

'Thanks, pet, I owe you one!' Roger claps her on the back and is off down the street, leaving Martina on the pavement with an unpleasant chore to do- one that she didn't even agree to.

Well, down the DHSS she'll go, then. She groans.

* * *

It's very clinical. That's the first thing Martina notices- the building isn't perfectly, spotlessly clean but even so there's a sterilised atmosphere to the place. Everything looks as though it's been designed to induce detachment, the hard chairs organised behind a large, solid frame that makes up the counters, forming a barrier between the masses and the staff. It's all a little bit intimidating, and there's an almost military feel to the order and structure of it all, the way the numbers and the word 'next' are all barked out, the mechanical way the people at the counters change. She scans the room.

A healthy handful of scruffs are slouching at the back, clutching hold of tickets and waiting their turn, a couple of whose heads turn in her direction when she enters the room. It's awful, it's awkward, it's unpleasant and she doesn't want to be here. Roger can sign-on himself. She's out of here.

Her brain is telling her body to turn and walk back out of the double doors, but for a while she just stands and observes the scene, mesmerised though she doesn't know why. Something stirs inside her- not a great flash of inspiration, nor terror, not a profound sense that something about this is right- or wrong, for that matter. It's just a…a strange, underwhelming acceptance of the inevitable, a thought planted in her brain that this feels like it should be part of her life somehow.

Martina has no idea why. She's never going to claim Social Security- she's made a firm pact with herself never to do so. If she wants money, she's going to _earn_ it.

But for some reason, some elusive, perhaps non-existent reason, Martina, driven by her own curiosity, crosses over to the dispenser on the wall and snaps a ticket out of it.

* * *

She sits for a few minutes, gazing at the enormous black seven-eight, burning it through her eyes and onto her brain. Martina shuts her eyes, and sees white numbers on the backs of her eyelids. The people around her get up one by one, vacating the chairs on either side of her and being replaced with almost identical glassy-eyed drones. It's like a factory assembly line, this, and she doesn't like it. She should've left- she's not looking forward to whatever happens when it's her turn.

'Next!'

It's the woman at the middle counter who's calling, her voice sharp and just a little bit shrill. Nobody moves, and the woman folds her hands.

'Number Seventy-Eight!' she snaps, rather more impatiently this time, and Martina realises with a start that that's her number, that this is _her_, that she's _now_, that she's supposed to be doing something, and so she rises and walks to the counter, wondering just what on earth she's going to say.

Her head spins as she sits down.

The clerk behind the counter looks up, pulling a fresh form from a stack and writing the date on it.

Martina twiddles her thumbs. How does this work? Does she speak, or does she wait to be spoken to?

The woman arches an eyebrow. '_Yes?'_

She has about ten years on Martina, but her general demeanour, as well as the way she's styled herself, seem to add several more onto that. She's a very thin woman, nose hooking toward almost non-existent mouth, hard eyes behind spectacles and dark hair dyed purplish. Her face looks as though it hasn't given or received good news in years, and Martina has wondered on occasion if she'll end up looking that way- hard and miserable, even on the outside. It's likely, she thinks. She's already on her way.

'Er,' Martina begins. She's never been intimidated like this before. It's usually her who does all the intimidating- perhaps Roger was right about this place. It's full of older, more frightening versions of her.

'Yes, _what is it?_'

'Well…'

'We haven't got all day. We close in fifteen minutes, you know.'

'I'm not really sure what to…'

'Well why don't you start by givin' me yer name?'

'Oh- I'm not 'ere fer meself,' Martina finally finds her normal voice. 'It's just me brother forgot ter sign-on this mornin', and…'

'You can't sign-on fer someone else. I'm sorry, Miss…'

'McKenna,' Martina supplies.

'I'm sorry, Miss McKenna, but if your brother was unavoidably detained, he should have let us know.'

'Well _I'm_ lettin' you know,' Martina says, slightly miffed.

The woman scrutinises her. 'McKenna…that's not a name I recognise…' She reaches to her left, slides a box of index cards towards her. 'What's your brother's first name?'

'Roger.'

'Roger, hmm…' she rifles through the box. 'No Roger McKenna 'ere- are you sure you're in the right office?'

Martina rolls her eyes, which makes the woman narrow hers. 'Oh, I'm sorry- I thought this was the DHSS.'

'Don't talk like that to me- you _know_ I meant the right district office.'

_Do I?_ Martina thinks.

'Look, there's no Roger McKenna on file; I suggest you check you've got the name and district right.'

'I think I know me own brother's name.'

The woman looks extremely bothered now. 'Is there anything _else_ I can help you with?'

That should be it. _No_, she should say, and walk away from the counter.

But something she can't control has hold of her tongue, and the words _I want a job_ spill off it before she can take them back.

The woman doesn't even look surprised by this outburst. She just folds her hands and leans a bit closer.

'I think you want the Employment Exchange. We don't provide that service- if you're lookin' for work, they'll help you find…'

'I thought there was a job goin' 'ere?'

'There is, yes,' she jerks her head towards the girl in the partition to Martina's right, 'Ethel there's been promoted.'

Martina doesn't need the extra info- all she'd wanted to know was whether that job was still going. It doesn't really appeal to her, but like Roger said, it seems right up her street. _She _could sit in a glass box putting people down, no problem.

'How do I apply fer that, then?'

The woman pushes her glasses down her nose, looks her up and down. She doesn't seem all that impressed.

Martina finds herself smoothing down her skirt and straightening her collar.

'First of all, you don't just barge up to the counter and demand a job,' the woman says. 'You go through the proper channels- if you saw the advertisement in the paper, which I suspect you did, you should know there was a number there to ring- no doubt they'd get you an application form and organise an interview.'

'Oh,' says Martina, 'all right, then.'

'_But_,' says the woman, holding her hand up. '_If _I might give you some advice…'

Martina straightens up in her chair.

'I wouldn't bother if I were you.'

She blinks. ' 'Scuseme?'

'Well, no offense, _love_, but look at you. You took about ten minutes before you even spoke ter me. You don't follow instructions- you didn't even read the advertisement well enough to see how and where you were supposed to apply- you're 'ardly suited to this, are you?'

Martina's jaw drops. 'And who put you in charge?'

'_Sweetie_, I've worked in this establishment for five years now. I started out hopeful and young and ignorant like you- but I soon learned. Workin' in this place isn't all it's cracked up to be- you have to be strong, and clever, and…confident- and you are not.'

Martina doesn't believe it. Rejected again. Rejected, not even by a prospective employer, but by some little snit on the counters who doesn't think she's up to snuff. She can feel steam coming from her ears. How _dare_ she say Martina isn't clever or strong? She doesn't even _know_ her- hasn't even _spoken_ to her for more than a minute or two and already she's writing her off.

That's downright unfair, that is. It's one thing to be rejected after an interview, to be told you're too late to apply or that you're not qualified, and Martina's used to being made to feel not good enough- but for someone to turn her away without even giving her a chance is beyond the pale.

She's not going to be made to feel an idiot by this mealy-mouthed, long-nosed cow, who thinks she owns the entire department because she's got a few years under her belt.

The woman looks like she's on the verge of dismissing her. _Well_, she's not going to get the satisfaction. Martina can see herself out, thanks.

'Oh, don't fret, love- I'm goin'. Forgive me fer theatenin' to taint your _precious job_.'

She stands, pushing the chair back in. The woman clears her throat.

'Next!' Martina calls, before she gets the chance to.

And it's not a bad imitation.

Not bad at all.

She steals a look at the clerk from the corner of her eye, and notices she looks rather put out.

Martina indulges in a tiny smirk of victory as she leaves.

* * *

'Excuse me, love?'

Martina is almost at the door; she yelps in alarm and turns when she feels the hand on her arm.

It's a frail-looking old lady, not a worry at all, and Martina leans back against the door, her hand against her chest.

'I'm sorry,' she pants, 'you gave me a fright, you did.'

'Would you know if there's a restroom in this building?'

Martina makes a disbelieving face. 'What?! I don't know! I've never been 'ere before!' Her irritation is rising- it was already bubbling after that uppity clerk tried to take her self-esteem down a few notches, but now this completely unnecessary intrusion has turned the heat up. She's going to snap at the next person she sees, in a minute and the old woman would do well to leave before it turns out to be her.

'Couldn't you help me find it?' The woman's tugging on her sleeve again. 'I'm afraid I can't walk around here all day- me legs aren't what they were.'

Martina sighs. Oh, what has she got to lose? She's already been humiliated and rejected for not one but _two_ jobs- wasting her afternoon searching a building she wants to leave for amenities isn't going to hurt her much more.

'Come on, then,' she sighs, taking hold of the woman's arm. 'We'll try through here.'

* * *

It takes her at least fifteen minutes- fifteen minutes she could have been spending doing something else, she thinks with a silent snarl-but she's eventually gotten the woman to her destination.

Only problem is, she can't find the way out now. The building had seemed so straightforward when she'd first set foot in the foyer- double doors, another set of double doors and she'd found herself waiting in line for one of the counters. But now she's been round a corner, down a passage and through countless doorways, and Martina can't remember which way she came.

In a fit of desperation, she turns the handle to the nearest door and slips through it.

She finds herself in a maze of filing cabinets and desks. Well, _that's _not right, is it? She's feeling angrily stubborn, though, and decides to push on rather than turn around, and picks her way through the room until she finds another door.

Now _this_, she thinks as she goes through it, is a bit more familiar. She's been here before- the counters, the ticket dispenser- at least she knows where she is now.

It would have been nicer if she was on the _other_ side of the counter, though.

Oh, Martina can't be bothered to go back through that bloody maze- she's got a good mind just to climb over the counter and escape that way. It wouldn't matter- the clerks and the clients have all gone, everything closed up for the evening.

She pushes a chair out of the way, intent on embarking on her mission, but the climb looks like a hassle, and Martina thinks that, just for a moment or two, she might like to sit down.

Nobody will care. She slumps into the seat, lowering her face to the desk, pressing her cheek against the cold surface and shutting her eyes.

She stays like that for a while.

* * *

'Oi! You!'

Martina nearly jumps out of her skin.

There's a man sitting at the desk in front of her, balding, middle-aged and wearing the most bulldog-like snarl she's ever seen in her life.

'Are you gonna serve me or _not_?' he growls.

Martina opens her mouth to protest. 'I don't-'

'Now, look here, you, I've 'ad just about enough o' this. This is the third time in a row I've 'ad me 'ard-earned wages deducted from me, girl, and I'm not gonna stand for it any longer, you 'ear?'

'I'm not-' Martina tries again, but the man won't even give her five seconds to explain that she doesn't work here. He's already onto the next leg of his tirade.

'There's no justice in this world. One day we'll get rid of the government, and we'll get rid of all the bloody civil servants, and all the poor sods'll rise up against this place, and the likes o' you will regret treatin' us this way! _Bullyin'_ us like this!'

She can't help but laugh.

'Bullyin' _you_?' The man has done nothing but try to intimidate her since the second he opened his mouth.

'The likes o' you don't care tuppence about our bloody struggles! We'll all be starvin' in the street, and you'll be in 'ere in your little plastic palace just lordin' it over us…'

Martina wants to explain that she's on his side, that she doesn't work here, that she herself has been 'lorded over' today by one of the employees here, but it's then that she notices something.

The man is wearing a signet ring.

And, by the looks of it, it's made of genuine gold, encrusted with real jewels- an extremely pricey piece. Not only that, is that…is that a _silk ascot_ he's got tied around his neck? The tag is sticking out at the end- the logo betraying that it's a designer label.

Martina eyes both these items, her eyebrows rising and a her mouth curving into a sarcastic smirk.

'Oh, yeah? Struggles?'

'Struggles, _yeah_!' he bangs his fist on the desk. 'I'm sufferin', you know! I've 'ad the wife's washing machine stolen, two tellies nicked from me 'ouse- and if I wanna earn the odd quid to replace them things I lost- which _by the way_, you lot _wouldn't reimburse me for_- you take it all off me again! _Declarin'_ things, my ar-'

'Sufferin'?' Martina interrupts. 'Sufferin', and yet you can afford two televisions and a washin' machine?'

He colours. 'Shut it, you. Don't change the subject!'

'Oh, all right, then,' Martina leans forward, 'I might not know much about this, but aren't you supposed ter _tell_ the Social Security if you earn money?'

She barely knows anything about the dole, apart from what she's gleaned from when Roger grumbles about it, but that much seems obvious.

'You don't know much about it, eh? Just shows what the bloody country is comin' to, doesn't it, if incompetent idiots like you are allowed to 'andle people's money! All you people are good at is snark- no knowledge about the people's sufferin'…'

Again with the 'suffering'. This man doesn't even know what the word _means. _She could tell him stories about 'suffering' that would make what little hair he has left stand on end.

'I'll _have you know…'_ Martina begins, about to set him straight. She's quite forgotten that she doesn't have anything to do with this place, that she was only here because she was trying to leave the building. For a moment, she's completely absorbed, her only thought how she can shut this man up about his apparent struggles and stop him complaining when he has no right to.

'You lazy cow- people like you shouldn't be workin' 'ere!' he shouts over her.

'She doesn't work 'ere, as it happens.'

Martina turns around and the woman who served her earlier is there, surveying her with brows raised and beady eyes narrowed. She cringes, preparing for the inevitable _what do you think you are doing here?_, but the DHSS lady seems to be giving her the once-over, examining her very thoroughly.

'I'll handle this,' she says after a moment, and Martina gladly gets out of the chair, heart thumping. She'll slip out now, before that lady can finish with the client and let her have it. She makes a slither for the door.

'_Just_ one moment!' the woman calls, and Martina pauses, hand on the doorknob. ' Don't go anywhere. I want a word with you in a minute.'

Martina slumps against the door, putting a hand to her forehead. Oh, _now_ she's done it. She didn't even want to be here in the first place, and now she's gone and gotten herself into this ridiculous mess. It would just crown a perfectly horrid day to get arrested, to get some sort of breaking-and-entering police report just because she got lost and ended up where she shouldn't be.

If she was Roger, she'd be making a run for it now. She still has time- a few seconds, at least, while the woman's telling the client to be off with him, to get _on his bike_- but she doesn't move. She isn't sure whether it's because she can't, or because she doesn't want to, but either way she just stands there like a deer in headlights.

'We closed twenty minutes ago,' the clerk is saying now, 'you should know better than to come bargin' in 'ere after hours and start harrassin' the staff…'

'You just said she wasn't staff!'

'That's neither here nor there. Supposing she had been? And all things considered, she handled your guff well.'

'_Wha_?!' the man growls. 'Me wha'?' Everythin' I said was the total truth!'

He continues to shout, his voice getting higher and higher, louder and louder as he realises she's not paying attention to his rant. The woman's voice remains at the same, even level.

Martina watches the exchange, mildly fascinated, and when the man finally does shove off, swearing more than he ought it has momentarily slipped her mind that she's in for it.

But then the woman turns in her chair, clearing her throat, and it all comes crashing back again. She's about to get it.

Whatever 'it' is.

'I may have misjudged you, you know.'

Martina shuffles her foot, clenches her fist behind her back, ready to hear how devious she must be, how what she's done is wrong, how she must be worse than this woman thought, something like that.

'Look,' the woman goes on, and Martina holds her breath and braces herself. 'D'you still want that job?'

Martina spits out the breath she's been holding.

'I thought you said-'

'I know what I said, and I take all of it back about you not being right. You seem, in my opinion, _exactly_ the right sort.'

This is the part where Martina feels she's entitled to be smug, only she doesn't want to jinx it.

'I'm not promisin' anything, mind,' she says, 'but I'm going to see the head of department tomorrow- if you could bring in a CV early tomorrow morning, before we open, I could take it with me, put in a good word for you. Get you a proper application. Ask 'em to arrange an interview, like.'

Are Martina's ears playing tricks on her? It sounds as if this woman has just said she'll help her get a job- that can't be right. Everything goes wrong for Martina, always- this sounds as if it's breaking that streak. Her mind is going a mile a minute.

At the mention of her CV, she leaps into action, appearing far more eager than she should, but not caring, wholly caught up in the moment. She shoves her hand into her handbag, bringing out the crumpled résumé she'd brought this morning, to the interview she never got to.

'Won't need to do all that,' she says, the words a little garbled in her haste, 'I've got it 'ere.'

'_Well_,' says the DHSS lady, eyebrows rising above the rims of her spectacles. 'I've never seen anyone so enthusiastic about _this_ job before.'

'I'm not enthusiastic,' Martina presses the paper more firmly into her hand. 'I just need the money.'

The woman scrutinises her, and then her mouth twitches into a wry smirk. 'I've 'eard _that_ before-but it's normally the people on the _other_ side of the counter sayin' it.'

Martina smirks back.

'I can't guarantee anythin', luv. But between you and me, no-one else wants this sort o' work- it's not as if we've 'ad a rush o' applicants. I don't see why you shouldn't get it.'

Martina thanks her politely, unsure what else she's supposed to say in this sort of situation.

The way she'd said _no-one else wants this sort of work_ unsettles her just a little- what has she gotten herself into?

Still, she can't help feeling a little pleased, a _little_ hopeful.

* * *

It's odd, odd to the point of being laughable that she wanders into the Department of Health and Social Security to do Roger's dirty work, and comes out with the promise of a job. Maybe that's the best way to do it- forget qualifications and references, she just needs to follow him somewhere and they'll hire her.

_Next time, Rog,_ she thinks with a smile, _can you get me a position at a really prestigious firm? That'd be nice._

Martina knows from a whole lifetime of experience that she shouldn't be getting hopeful, that there's every chance that woman (was her name Rachael? She mentioned it, but Martina's mind had been on other things, she could hardly concentrate on something as trivial as that) won't be able to secure the job for her, that they'll already have someone else in mind, that one encounter with a client she shouldn't have been dealing with won't be nearly enough, that three A-levels and one past job in a pub won't be good enough for…no. She's not going to think of the myriad of what-ifs right now.

She's going to let herself get hopefully excited just once.

Just this once.

Oh, she can't wait to tell her brother.

* * *

His reaction when she does tell him isn't at all what she expected. It's a bit of a letdown, really. Martina had been looking forward to having a good old laugh with him about it, to picking over how they used to joke about her going to work there, about how she said she never would, but he's so preoccupied he barely even acknowledges her announcement.

'Won't be long,' he says to himself, barely audible, turning something small and shiny around in his fingers. A bottlecap, perhaps. 'At least you're provided for, then. That's good.'

Martina furrows her brow. 'What was that?'

'Nothing, pet. Nothing.' He picks up a half-empty bottle of Glen Scotia from the mantel, takes a swig and makes a face at the taste.

Something else occurs to Martina. 'When I went down there, they 'adn't 'eard of you. _There's no Roger McKenna on file_, they said.'

Roger freezes with the bottle halfway to his lips. Something flashes across his face, but when he speaks, he still manages to sound casual.

'Oh, I forgot to tell yer, pet- should've asked for Roger Covington.'

She scowls. _'Covington?_'

'Yeh, I, er…I don't use me real name down there.'

She's horrified. 'Why not?'

'Well,' he says, 'I figured it'd be better if me address wasn't on record there.'

Martina gives him a suspicious glance. 'Why?'

'Errrrrr…' Roger has never dithered for so long. 'Well. You know. Once they get your details down on paper, who knows who they might be passin' 'em to. You're finished.'

She twists her lip. 'Doesn't that amount to deceit?'

She's not sure whether she's talking about his fake name scheme or the way he's talking to her. After knowing Roger for nearly twenty years, she's an expert on telling when he's lying, when he's avoiding answering properly, when he knows something he shouldn't and tries to cover up for himself. He seems to be doing all three of them now.

'Rog,' she says, her hands finding her hips, 'if I'm gonna be workin' there, how am I supposed ter let that slip? I could immediately lose me job if they found out I knew and left it be- or worse, I could go ter gaol, or…'

'Oh, don't panic about that, pet!' Roger says, shaking her by the shoulder. 'There's no reason they'd connect that with you- and if you feel rotten about it, I _suppose_ you can snitch on that one identity and stop the allowance. I've got two more to fall back on for the time being.'

He smiles, pats her on the head as if that sorts everything out and strolls off into the kitchen, downing the rest of his bottle as he goes.

Martina just stands there with her jaw hanging.

* * *

About a week later the phone rings, and Roger drops the receiver, hollering.

'It's the DHSS! They're onto me!' He rushes about the flat, frantically tidying up, though Martina doesn't see how that's going to help one iota. She sighs, getting up from the sofa and taking over the call.

'Is that Martina McKenna?'

Her heart jumps as she answers in the affirmative.

'I'm calling about your application for the vacant position…'

'It's all right, Rog!' Martina calls out about five minutes later, coming into the doorway of his room to see him flinging papers around. She snickers as she watches his panic attack. 'You're not bein' arrested- no-one's caught you out or dobbed you in or anythin' like that.'

Roger drops an armful of manila folders onto his bed. 'I'm not? They 'aven't? Oh- I mean, I'm not. They 'aven't. I 'ad nothin' to worry about, pet, really, I was just…'

Martina shakes her head at him, and smirks. '_Yet._ They want me ter go in for an interview and a…character assessment or somethin' on Monday.'

'Oh.' He slumps right onto his bed, rolling onto his back. 'Great, pet. Fantastic.'

'If I get the job, then we'll see.'

Roger's pillow hits her in the back as she's leaving the room.

* * *

During the next few weeks, Martina's rushed off her feet. She's questioned by a host of different, official-looking people about things she barely understands, giving answers she barely remembers, filling out paperwork for issues she has hardly heard of, signing paper after paper to certify that she's competent, that she'll be discreet and impartial, that she has no criminal record blah, blah, blah. She's warned she'll need to keep up with any changes that the department makes, not that she's even learned their current policies yet, she's sat down before yet another official to agree on her working patterns, her hours, when she wants to take her time off, and she goes with whatever they suggest, not sure whether she should be negotiating this more firmly, but certain that she wouldn't know what she was negotiating _for_ if she tried, and more concerned with _getting_ the job in the first place than with arguing over the amount of holidays she'd be allowed to take and rubbish like that.

She's questioned again and then questioned some more, is given statements to write and handed another mountain of papers to fill out; she churns out her signature so many times it evolves into a messy scrawl, and then at last, after what seems like an infinite number of boring, time-wasting days she's congratulated, has her weak, limp, signature-sore hand shaken and informed she's got the job, that she'll be given a six-month probation period and after that, should nothing go wrong, a permanent position.

It's all she can do to smile and thank her new bosses, before dragging herself home with a stack of booklets under her arm and crashing onto the sofa, celebrating the fact that she's no longer unemployed by sleeping for fourteen hours straight.

* * *

It's not that Martina's _particularly _excited about her new job, no more than she was about her first one in the pub, though she is relieved that at last, someone has actually seen something of value in her. It's not that she doesn't know that welfare workers, civil servants, DHSS clerks are not the most well-liked of people. She knows enough of the world to understand how it works, to understand that those people suffering from lack of jobs (or not, given the specific circumstances) feel they are entitled to bite the hand that feeds them and take out their frustrations on the people handing the money out, and she's seen enough, just from that one day she was down there, to expect how she's likely to be treated.

She's given several briefings and some basic (_very_ basic, she realises when she actually gets stuck into it and it hits her that it's not all blanket-cases as they'd like her to believe) training, her new workmates lazily introduce themselves and then she's thrown into the deep end, left to fend for herself as the partitions are opened up on her first day and people immediately start filing up to her counter, acting as though she knows exactly what's going on and precisely how to handle them, and Martina blunders through eight hours of work frantically checking people's names against their records and scribbling down as many details as she can.

She'd thought an office job would be easier.

She should have known she'd be wrong.

The two women she's working with seem hell-bent on telling her about all the different little problems she's likely to encounter, on warning her that it's not a glamorous job and that if she's hoping for a glittering career, she's bound to be disappointed, how they all started off thinking they could make a difference and learned to know better soon enough. Martina ignores them, for the most part.

It doesn't matter about that. She's not likely to go that way, to experience fresh disappointment- she lives in a perpetual state of it. She's been let down more times than she can count, has always known her future wouldn't be particularly fantastic.

She doesn't have any illusions to lose.

Or so she thinks, anyway.

* * *

Well, if this is as good as it's going to get, Martina thinks she might as well make the best of it. She's not sweeping floors, after all- she has a job where she can sit down for most of the day- for those small mercies she can be thankful, and she sets about ensuring she doesn't lose her job by giving it all she's got.

She brings home thin little pamphlets and not-so-thin booklets, acquainting herself with the different schemes and policies, struggling her way through the principles of the Beveridge Scheme and all the other various allowances one can claim, trying to tell them all apart, leaving little lists of them around the flat in an attempt to memorise them. She's got to know them, and know them well, she thinks. She's got to be ready, just in case one of her claimants tries to deceive her into believing that they have a right to something they don't.

So far she hasn't experienced anything too bad, mostly just cases of _I lost my job_ and _my giro hasn't come yet_, a few stupid claims she can wave off straight away, her favourite being _me tortoise went missing_, and she thinks she's starting to get the hang of how to speak to people without acting over-friendly or encouraging them to do the wrong thing, how to handle them when they get a little bit rough, when to give them a form and when to say no. She's seen how her colleagues are treated, heard stories about the scoundrels that try to get more than they deserve, and she's been practising her hard face and putting a bit of venom in her voice, getting herself ready for when she finds such people at her counter.

She's given her little blue staff badge, with the golden crown on the top and the letters _DHSS_ emblazoned across the front, and she makes sure to pin it on perfectly straight each morning, ignoring Roger as he strolls past, face covered in shaving cream, belting out _Land of Hope and Glory_ or _When the Sergeant Major's on Parade_ when he sees her doing it. He can make fun all he likes. It won't make much difference to her.

She buys three more smart blouses for work. She's got what might actually, at a stretch, be called a 'decent job', and she wants to look the part.

Martina's flicking through a magazine one night and comes across a picture of a model, done up as a secretary for her photoshoot, sitting cross-legged on a desk with her hair looking a bit curly, a bit full-bodied and striking a balance between smart, stern and soft all at once. She studies it for a while, and decides she'll have a go at copying it. It might go with the new image she's making out for herself.

It takes her two and a half hours in the bathroom with a cheap curling tong to get her hair to look anything like the picture, but she manages it at last, and she stands there in front of the mirror in her smart, stiff shirt and her smart, stiff hair and something falls into place.

She doesn't recognise herself for a minute. In front of her stands a completely different woman, one who's severe and stern, and…responsible. A grown-up. Everything she never was before she left her parents. Everything she is now. She raises one eyebrow at her reflection, and it raises it back. She narrows her eyes, and it narrows them back. It really is her. This is who she is.

She's a hard, _serious_ sort of person, and she's preparing to spend her life pitting wits against people just like Roger, trying to stop them slipping through the cracks in the system, giving them what they're entitled to get, but encouraging them, if she can, to actually make something of their lives, and then leave and never come back. And she'll be glad if she does- the people she sees and hears about (most of them, anyway, there are the occasional honest few who really _do_ need what they say they do) are irritating and aggravating, and all of them seem to want to blame her for their personal problems in life.

She doesn't know what to feel about that. These people are pathetic- but so is Roger, and while she can't stand them, she still adores him above everyone else. There's a difference, though. Roger's her brother. Roger's family. They're not. She can draw the line that way. She breathes in and out a few times and then turns away from the mirror.

* * *

Roger laughs at her hair when he sees it.

Martina rolls her eyes and more or less ignores him.

* * *

'Can you just bring me home a giro and some forms today?' Roger asks her as she's leaving for work. 'A couple of freebies from work? You can call it family discount.'

Martina pauses in the doorway. 'No. I can't. You 'ave ter sign-on if you want ter receive anythin'.'

'Oh, _how come?_' he coaxes.

She shrugs. 'Protocol.'

It's one thing to turn a blind eye to everything Rog does at home, but she's not going to let him start messing up her work. She _really _wants this job, wants to make a decent attempt at it at least, and she's not going to start bending the rules, especially when she's only been working there a couple of weeks.

'Sod protocol. I'm your brother.'

'And if I start bringin' home stuff fer you, then what's to stop everyone doin' it for everyone else?'

Roger looks at her in disbelief. 'What happened to you? When did you start carin' about rubbish like that? _You_ never followed rules or any o' that crap.'

'I've got responsibilities now.'

'Responsibilities! What bull!'

Martina looks at him and for a few seconds she's filled with disgust. She's changing. She's outgrowing him, she realises with a painful twinge. She no longer thinks it's funny that he's such a dreadful person, and she no longer doesn't care that he's wreaking havoc in her life.

'You _are_ a bad influence,' she says, and shuts the door behind her, not waiting to see the look on his face at her condemnation.

* * *

She gets through work in a daze, signing and stamping like a machine, yelling 'next!' like a recording. Every client she encounters seems to remind her in some way of Roger, whether it be the sloppy way they've pieced together their excuses or their attempts to make her dishonesty sound somehow forgivable, and soon she isn't distinguishing faces anymore- they've all got sunken eyes and red hair and are all so frustrating that she wants to reach through the partition and slap them.

She had always thought Roger was a one-off, was unique, was somehow different and special: a good man with dark problems cutting through his life. She's beginning to realise a different truth entirely.

They're all like that. All of them could be more than they are. All of them choose to give in to laziness, to unwholesome activity, to whatever they can do rather than take on responsibility. They're all probably out there wreaking terrible influences on the minds of those around them. Roger is no different to anyone else –except for the fact that he has always been kind to her, has seemingly always cared.

Well, up until recently, anyhow. Their conversation this morning seems to mirror exactly the exchanges she's carrying out here, at work, only without the desk and with a more personal stake. If she didn't love that git, if he didn't mean the world to her, if she didn't trust him unconditionally, if he wasn't her brother, then…

It isn't the first time she's had this idea, this thought. It has been plaguing her for months now, maybe a year or more, but she's always suppressed it. Now, though, she doesn't see any reason in hiding it from herself, seeing as she knows what she's thinking anyway.

If she didn't love Roger, she'd hate him.

* * *

Their fight continues for the best part of three days, the two of them alternating between hurling abuse at each other and sitting in silence, sulking and refusing to speak to each other, performing childish cold-shouldering acts such as getting themselves a cup of tea and drinking it in front of the other, such as getting up and changing the channel on the snowy telly the instant the other has just sat down, having just changed it back, and then it's back to throwing cups and plates at each other and shouting again.

Martina dredges up every single one of her resentments, uses ammunition she wouldn't have dreamed of touching, blaming him for ruining her relationship with Gav, even though she told him at the time she hadn't meant it when she said he was wrecking her life, blaming him for getting her drunk as a child, even though she had promised herself never to make him feel guilty over that as long as she lived, blaming him for every little thing that contributed to the sorry state her life is now in. She even has a go at him for her own state of mind, even though she knows full well that the turmoil that nearly permanently goes on in her head is nothing to do with him.

And Roger throws his own weapons back at her, hitting her where he knows it'll hurt, accusing her of imposing on him, accusing her of demanding his attention all the bloody time, accusing her of thrusting herself upon him by moving in with him when he wasn't prepared to take care of her, and what's more, of bringing with her the dark cloud that has always hovered over her life and depositing it over his as well.

Martina feels each of his words like a knife through her back, knows that every one of her words is the same sort of dagger to him. Why are they hurting each other like this? This isn't right, this isn't right at all, and she wants to fix it, but the self-destructive mechanism inside her keeps her mouth shooting off insults at him, and then she's bringing up his drinking and his permanent state of unemployment, straying into territory that's none of her business, and she knows it.

'When did you turn into such an unfeeling cow?' Roger demands, after she tells him she's going to dob in all three of his fake identities to the Social Security, and serve him right, 'you're like a combination of Mam and Dad- and what's more, all the _worst_ bits o' the pair of them!'

Martina slaps him.

For a moment both of them stand there, unable to believe what she's done. A line has been crossed, though neither are sure who's crossed it- Roger for that remark, or Martina for hitting him for it.

'My life would have been better without you,' Martina says, her voice so cold she can feel the frosty air crawling up her throat. And with that, she walks out of the flat and slams the door hard.

And at that moment, she means it. Maybe her life _would_ have turned out better if Roger hadn't been in it. She could have gotten by on being ignored, if she'd worked at it. She could have eventually managed to please her parents, gotten better marks at school, gotten a really _good_ job. She could be all right now, could be happy somewhere working somewhere nice with a nice partner like Gav was, and feeling perfectly fine about allowing someone like that into her life, because there wouldn't be any problems for him to share in…

Maybe she won't come back. Maybe she'll just move out. Leave Roger behind. Start afresh.

* * *

But the trouble is, she loves the bastard.

And as long as she loves him, she'll keep coming home. After all, he's the only family she's got- and who'd take care of him of she wasn't there? He needs her, needs her to help him up when he collapses, drunk and about to vomit or pass out, needs her to help him out with money and stand by him when people turn on him and he wants to rant about his so-called friends. And no matter how terrible her life is, she can't forget that he does _try_ to make it better for her. He does love her, really. If anyone has ruined her life, it's her.

She comes back after a few hours, and finds him sitting on the sofa caressing his framed picture of the two of them.

'Roger?'

He looks up, his face, she's surprised to notice, blurry with tears.

She takes a hesitant step towards him, sits down next to him. 'I didn't mean it.'

Roger wraps his arms as tightly around her as they'll go.

'Neither did I. I'm sorry, pet. I'm so sorry- for makin' a mess o' you- fer everything.'

'No,' she whispers, '_no_. You didn't.'

Martina sobs as she holds onto him.

* * *

It all reverts to normal, and Martina is in a considerably better mood next day at work- though emotionally drained, and fed up with the naggy woman, curlers in her hair and coat pulled on over her nightie, who has popped down here seemingly to wail about her marital woes and the fact that all her forms still say 'married' when they should now read 'single'.

It's the pub all over again.

Only much worse.

Because instead of wanting her sympathy, the clients like to take out all their woes on her, as well as telling her about them. They like to _blame_ her. It's not _I've had a terrible day and I'm glad to be here talking to you, rack me up another,_ it's _I've had a terrible day and you sit there like you're God Almighty, now where the hell's me bloody money?!_

'You can change yer forms yerself,' Martina says, picking up a fresh paper from each of her stacks and placing them all in front of the woman.

'Aw, hey? What's all this, then? Not _more_ paperwork! Don't tell me I have to redo the whole lot!'

'Well, if you're convinced yer 'usband's gone for good, there's no point in keepin' 'is name in yer permanent records, now, is there?'

The woman's face reddens.

'And what part of you thought I'd _want _to hear _that_?'

Martina sighs. 'I don't _believe_ in tellin' people what they wanna hear. It won't 'elp yer, in the long run, bein' deluded into thinkin' life's wonderful, and everyone goes around singin' songs and the sun shinin' and the money fallin' off the trees…'

'It's all right for _you_!' her client interrupts. 'You're fine- you've got a job, and a pension and a cuckoo-clock to look forward to when you retire- you don't have to worry about the uncertainty of knowing you could be out on the streets some day! You don't have to put up with stress and worry and pain!'

Oh, no? She supposes it doesn't matter if she has to put up with the stress and worry and pain of having a brother who seems to be getting into some pretty shady business, of being stuck in a job she's beginning not to like anymore but afraid to lose, of being constantly chased by the rain and the darkness within her head, then? Just as long as she has a job. Somehow, that, in the minds of the deliberately unemployed, seems to make sense.

Martina could weep for these people, sometimes.

* * *

The front door creaks at about half-past two. Martina jolts awake, freezing. Roger is already in, is in his room- that means one thing. Someone is breaking in. She begins calculating what the heaviest objects in the room are, which is the closest, how long it would take if she jumped up and ran to grab something to throw at the intruder.

'Careful now,' says a hushed voice, 'don't wanna wake Rog's baby sister.'

'If she _is_ 'is sister, I've never bought that.'

'Please, you think he'd leave a live-in lover on the couch?'

'I'm not familiar with what he likes ter do…'

Martina's joints have all locked together. She lies there, pretending to be asleep, grinding her teeth and not particularly caring if any of them notice the scraping noise.

Not Roger's mates. Not at this time of night. Not _more_ no-good plans.

'Eh! I said wait _outside_ for me!' comes Roger's voice, and his shadow emerges from his bedroom. 'How did you get in, anyway?'

One of them snorts, though it sounds more like a honk. 'Your lock is crap, Rog. You should think about gettin' it fixed.'

Martina makes a mental note to get three new bolts first thing tomorrow.

'Not that it'll matter soon, anyway,' one of his mates goes on.

Roger makes a cross noise. 'You're assuming it's gonna go wrong.'

'You've gotta consider the _if_-s.'

'It could go right, though.'

'It'd bloody well _better_ go right,' Roger says, 'I'm up to me neck in it- I think I owe about ten thou now, and if I don't get the money to pay it soon, I'll be in the nick.'

That's news to Martina. She'd thought he'd been doing so well, had been paying for his debts- she finds herself shivering, sorely tempted to sit up, to let him know she's awake and has heard every word of this conversation.

But she doesn't move.

'Yeah, you'll be in the nick if they catch us doin' this, you'll be in the nick if you don't do it and have no money. What've you got to lose, mate?'

'Martina,' Roger says quietly. 'I could lose her- if this goes wrong, if I can't…'

'Oh, bring 'er with you, then!'

'Are you _jokin'_?! _I'm _ not 'avin' a woman along, muckin' it up for us…'

'I wouldn't do that,' Roger breaks them up. 'I couldn't. It's better if she doesn't know anythin' about this. Safer.'

Martina wants more than ever to get up and talk to Roger, stop whatever it is he's up to, but though she opens her mouth, not a squeak comes out, though she tries to move, not one single muscle responds. She's paralysed.

'Yeah, well. C'mon, then. This is it.'

'What, now?'

'Yeah, we've been puttin' it off far too long…'

'I thought we were gonna discuss it more…'

'Look, we act now or we miss our change. Everything's settled- it has to be tonight.'

'I'm not ready!' Roger cries out, and then lowers his voice again, his silhouette briefly turning in her direction. 'I was gonna set everything up for her- make sure she…'

'Roger, _it has to be now!_'

'Shhhhh,' he responds. 'You'll wake her.' He waves with his hands and the shadowy lumps of his mates all slope off and out of the flat. Roger hovers over her a moment, kisses her forehead and follows.

Martina lies there, trembling for over an hour, finding it difficult to connect her brain to her reflexes and get up. Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong. The room spins, like it did when she was a child and drunk, only she hasn't touched a drop of alcohol.

She honestly can't work out how she goes back to sleep, but some fluke makes it so, and when she wakes, it's to the stench of alcohol and vomit, and Roger is lying on the floor next to the sofa, passed out with an empty bottle beside him.

Martina looks at him and almost collapses into a fit of hysterical relief. He hasn't gone anywhere, other than to drink, like he normally does. She'd had visions of him disappearing forever after that conversation last night. She'd had terrified thoughts of him doing something wicked, evil, criminal, led on by his friends.

But evidently, none of that has come to pass, because Roger is here and perfectly fine, if a bit drink-addled. But that's nothing new.

Her relief is such that she leaps on him.

'Ow! Eh… 'Tina, geroff me, knock it off, I'm hung over…' he pulls himself into a sitting position, trying to push her off of him. 'What's the matter with you?'

'Where _were_ you?'

'What d'you mean, where was I? I was at the pub, and then I came home around eleven, and you were asleep. I was 'ere, pet. I'm sorry if I sicked on your rug.' He looks apologetically at his handiwork, at how he's ruined the mat she bought with her first pay check, but Martina doesn't care about that.

'Oh, thank God!' she says, hugging him, meaning it. _Thank You, God._

Roger gives her a very odd look. 'Are you all right, pet?'

'Course I am.'

'Well, good. You can get up now, you're sitting on me ribs and I think you're gonna break 'em.'

Martina gets off him hastily.

'And _if_ you're so all right, you can make me some coffee for me 'angover, can't you, pet?'

Martina gives an affectionate tut and goes into the kitchen to do so, overwhelmingly lightened. He said he came back at eleven, had been there since, but in her memory, he and his mates had been plotting and leaving much later than that.

It wasn't real, Martina thinks, sighing heavily. None of it was real. None of it happened. It was a dream. A nightmare. Sleep paralysis, that's what she had, that's why she couldn't move.

Her fears coming to life in what happened to be a very realistic dream.

It wasn't real. She believes that with every fibre of herself.

She _has_ to believe it wasn't real.

* * *

The beginning of the end- the real, proper end, the finale, the conclusion of one whole stage of her life, has been on the horizon for a long, long time, probably since she moved in with Roger, perhaps before. Perhaps it's been coming since Roger was kicked out of home. Perhaps it's been coming since Roger got her drunk, since he first got arrested. Perhaps, even, it's been coming since the day Roger got involved with drink, before she was even born, perhaps it's always been inevitable that one day, one fateful day, Roger would be confronted with irreversible consequences for his actions.

And Martina, blind with love for the one person she thinks she can trust, refusing to let her suspicions get the better of her, doesn't notice it, despite the warning signs.

Until, one day, after twenty years of them being together, it happens, what has always been bound to happen.

Roger exits the stage.

Exits her life.

And when he does, he takes with him the last of Martina's illusions.

When he does, Martina can't cope.

* * *

Martina wakes with a foggy soreness in her sinuses. Not a particularly good start to a birthday, she has to admit, but it doesn't matter much. She's going to be dealing with another round of bawdy clients, all blaming their many problems on her- and that far overshadows a sinus headache. Oh, well. She'd better grit her teeth and get up and ready for it.

Martina sits up with a little grumble and begins to peel all the bedclothes off the sofa and fold them.

'Mornin', Rog!' she calls in the direction of his bedroom, waiting for the usual grumble of _shut up, I'm tryin' ter sleep!_ No answer. He must be pretty hung over-not an abnormal occurrence, so she thinks nothing of it. They'll spend time together when she gets home, have a lovely celebration once he's sobered up, she's sure of it. She doesn't even stop to consider the other night- she's firmly written that off as a dream, doesn't even _consider_ considering it.

She carries on with her normal tasks, hunting for one of the few pieces of crockery they still have (after their recent fight saw most of them smash against the wall) to eat breakfast out of, washing, dressing, curling her hair, setting off. It's all so normal, so clockwork that she doesn't even stop to consider that something might be wrong- why would she?

'See yer, Rog!' she yells as she shuts the door behind her, squares her shoulders and mentally prepares herself for another gruelling day in her gruelling job.

* * *

It's been a tedious eight hours or so but she's gotten through it somehow, ignoring the headache that's still clogging and throbbing through her sinuses as she unlocks the front door and tosses her bag inside the flat, wincing as it clunks onto the ground and spills its contents everywhere rather than landing on the sofa.

'Roger!' she calls, stooping to pick everything up. No answer.

Well, that's nothing to worry about. Afternoons aren't really her-and-Rog times anyway- he's always either out or asleep.

She puts her things away, changes and drinks some coffee and takes a disprin for her headache, sits and watches a grainy programme on telly while she awaits his return, humming vaguely to herself. He'll be back soon.

* * *

She'd been hoping she and Rog could have a nice dinner (she'll pay), but six o'clock comes, and then seven. No Roger.

With a little twinge of annoyance, she begins to wonder if he's forgotten.

No, not Rog. Never Roger. He knows everything about her, remembers everything. He cares. Something's held him up, that's all. Even _he_ wouldn't be going off getting drunk on her birthday.

She makes dinner on her own, sets aside a portion for her brother and waits.

Eight o'clock. Nine o'clock. No Roger.

The little twinge starts to throb.

She makes herself some tea, settles on the sofa and waits.

Ten, eleven.

Twelve.

No Rog.

She gets her blankets out, sets up her bed. She's going to give him a piece of her mind when he comes home.

One.

She tries sleeping, but her annoyance is giving way to something else.

Worry.

It's not like Roger to be late- not on a day like today. He drops everything for her, always. She keeps on waiting.

At two, Martina dozes off, and when she wakes, it's six, the flat is empty and cold and dark, and Roger still isn't there.

* * *

Nor is he there that evening, either. She's spent her whole Saturday inside the flat, ready to grill him when he comes home, but she never gets the opportunity. She doesn't get so much as a glimpse of him.

Martina doesn't want to make anything of it. He's disappeared for a stretch of more than one day before, but the fact that it's now makes it start to amble over into the Quite Serious Problem category. Roger never misses her birthday. It's not like him. And if he had to, he'd let her know, he'd at least write _going out_ on a scrap of paper and leave it for her to find.

She thinks about thugs and shady whisperings, and wonders if maybe that night wasn't a dream after all.

* * *

Monday rolls around without any sign of her brother, and Martina is getting on the frightened side now. She wants to look for him, but she wouldn't know where to begin. She had gone out yesterday but had only been able to try the pubs before having to give up, and it upsets her as she really thinks about it that she knows so little about Roger's life that she couldn't even phone someone and ask if he was with them, couldn't even head to somewhere she could be sure she'd find him, because she wouldn't have a clue who to phone or where to head.

If he doesn't come back tonight, she thinks, she'll go to the police and file a missing persons report.

And now she's at her desk, trying to get through the day as if she's not churning up inside, trying to force her sandwich down to give herself some more energy before her break ends and the next clients come in. She can't even swallow a mouthful.

'Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk,' says Rachael, if that is indeed her name, from the next partition. Martina looks up, wondering if perhaps a conversation about whatever is making her tut might take her mind off things.

Her colleague has her long nose buried in today's paper.

'What?' Martina says.

'I despair about the way the world's headin',' could-be-called-Rachael says. 'The hooligans that go around these days…'

Boring. Martina doesn't think she can be bothered to put up with this conversation, even if it could be used as a distraction. She pulls out some paperwork to do instead.

Her workmate keeps on talking to her, unaware Martina no longer cares.

'I don't see how _anyone_ could be foolish enough ter think they could _actually get away_ with armed robbery- of course they were gonna be found out. Not very organised, I must say. Oh, and these people 'ave the nerve to blame our department- well, the ones that were caught did, anyway.'

'Uh huh.' Martina isn't really listening. 'Did they, now?'

'Cowards, the lot of them- running away, not facing up to what they've done. The law will catch up with them eventually.'

'Yeah, yeah…' Martina mutters absently, crumpling up a form on which she's now written the wrong thing in the wrong box and grabbing a fresh one. The monologue in the next partition continues.

'These bloody alcoholics- if they didn't waste all their money on drink in the first place they wouldn't be running out of money to spend on drink, and then they wouldn't go and rob breweries like that…'

'Money what?' Martina tries to pretend she's still not paying attention, but the mention of alcoholics has gotten her alert. It reminds her of her very own alcoholic, of the fact that Roger is still missing. She grips her pen so hard she thinks it might snap, except her hand is so sweaty it slides out of her fist. She wishes her comrade would shut up now; she's making her pine and worry, and she'd been hoping to take her mind off it.

'Hmm, tsk, tsk,' says Ra…says the woman who'd first recommended her for the job. Martina folds her arms. She's not going to escape this conversation, is she?

'Yeah, yeah, it's a shame…' she says, 'when was this, then?'

'Oh, I don't know, it doesn't say, I don't think…' she scans it, making a clicking noise with her teeth that drives Martina mad. 'Hold on a minute…' from the corner of Martina's eye, she sees her turn, give her a funny look.

'Martina…didn't you say your brother's name was Roger?'

Martina's head shoots up from her papers, her whole body jerking as if it has been electrocuted. No, no, really, that's too much, it can't possibly be…

'What?'

'Roger McKenna?'

'Y-eah,' Martina manages to grit out. No, come on. If she's suggesting what Martina thinks she's suggesting, well, then this had better bloody well be some sort of big practical joke. And if…no _when_ it is, when her workmate starts laughing at her and says 'gotcha', she's going to throw everything on her desk at her for putting her through this.

Because it is not, in any way, funny.

Not one bit of it.

Her colleague raises her eyebrows- not in her normal, interrogative way, but somehow painfully sympathetic. 'Have you seen yer brother lately?'

'No, he 'asnt been 'ome in days-_what are you sayin'?_'

She just keeps on looking at her.

'_Give-me-that!_' She sounds hysterical, she knows. Right now it doesn't matter.

She snatches the newspaper out of the woman's hands, turning the pages so quickly several tear.

It could be an ordinary article. It could be about anyone, in any place, one of the normal features she could read and then easily forget about, except for that one line.

That one line, those few printed words, which effectively end everything she's ever known.

_Although seven of the twelve men involved were accosted, five managed to evade the police that were stationed around the area. After questioning the others this morning, the five men have been identified as…_ and then there's a list of names with ages, and an entreaty to the general public that if anyone is aware of any of their whereabouts they are to contact the police immediately.

Martina vaguely recognises some of the names, can sort of remember a Kyle, can particularly remember a Howard as making a lecherous comment about her at one of Roger's little get-togethers, but she doesn't really care, because there's only one name that matters.

Her fingernail traces over where _Roger McKenna, 37_, has been printed, her entire hand quivering, her brain refusing to take it in. That isn't possible. He wouldn't…he wouldn't take part in an armed robbery (and especially not in one where they took alcohol _and_ money), not even if he _is_ a bad lot, not even if he _is_ running up enormous debts, not even if his mates tried to push him into it, he wouldn't do it, and he certainly wouldn't run from the police.

He just wouldn't.

Martina doesn't believe it.

She won't believe it.

She scrunches the paper, smudging ink all over her palms in the process, and then claps her hands to her face, rubbing newsprint over that as well.

Nonononono. No. No.

That would mean her dream a few nights back was real- it flies back into her face, and she can clearly hear Roger saying he wanted to _set things up for her_, that he _wasn't ready_. Ready for what? Robbery? But he'd been there the next day, it doesn't make sense, he'd been fine all that day, laughing and teasing her and then the next morning when she woke up he'd just _vanished_, just melted away into thin air, it doesn't make any…

It might do, she realises. If they only just identified the men involved, he'd have had a few days to act, to get himself away before anyone found him.

But why didn't he say something to her? Couldn't he have at least let her know _something_, even to the effect that he was going but couldn't say why? She knows he couldn't have stayed, not after that, but why didn't he…

But why did he even do it in the first place? Roger couldn't, he wouldn't, he's Roger, and while he might be a bad influence, he's still trustworthy, he…

He _just wouldn't_.

Martina feels the contents of her stomach rocketing towards her throat, and her brain turn into a puff of smoke and fly out through her eyes and away into the sky.

She sways, her eyes widening and then shutting, and then her chair tips right over backwards.

* * *

She thinks maybe the other two clerks got her home after she fainted. She doesn't even know how they knew where she lived, nor how they got her inside, nor who was holding the fort down the DHSS while all this was going on.

It's unimportant.

She can't process this.

She just lies there, not thinking, not feeling.

She is nothing.

Just a wisp of molecules floating in a cluster, somehow blinking and breathing, that's what she is.

She's lying here, in his flat, or what used to be his flat, not existing, and Roger's run off somewhere, the police after him.

Roger's gone.

_Roger's gone_.

* * *

The strangest thing is that, for a while, Martina's incredibly apathetic about the whole thing. She sort of wafts around, a smoky wisp of herself, doing everything she normally does robotically. It's as though a large section of her brain's dormant, only the bits that control her being able to move and speak still active.

She doesn't think about Roger. She doesn't think about the fact that perhaps her entire world has just been destroyed. She puts the newspaper out of sight, keeps cleaning the flat, still finding empty bottles hidden around the place, and she bins them without a word.

She struggles through two days at work in this way, noticing that the people she sees are lying to her, are taking forms from her desk which she hasn't offered them, but she doesn't care. She doesn't care about anything. She's lost the ability to think and feel.

The police come a couple of times to talk with her, and she remains quiet and unresponsive. She gives her statement in a monotone, and when they press her, question her, she answers them like a record with a scratch.

_Yes, Roger McKenna is my brother. Yes, I've been living with him for two years. _

_No, he never told me where he was going._

_Yes, I knew he was an alcoholic. _

_No, he never told me what he was doing._

_Yes, I work at the Department of Health and Social Security. About four months, yeah. Yes, I knew he was going under a fake name. No, I didn't know at the time- I found out later._

_No, he never told me what he was involved in. No, he never told me he was planning a robbery. _

_No, he never told me anything. _

_No, he NEVER TOLD ME ANYTHING!_

It's only as Martina repeats this over and over that it begins to sink into her brain, that she realises how true it rings.

Roger never told her anything.

She used to think he told her _everything_- she learned about the perils of the world from him, learned some questionably useful advice, the facts of life- but that's all he ever really told her. Facts. She never knew who his mates really were. She never knew where he was going when he went out, and always assuming he was at one pub or another had been enough to make do with. She knew he had friends, had relationships with a handful of women, but it was all shallow knowledge, really. Just scratching the surface.

She was never really granted access to the inside of his head, even though he had a detailed map of hers.

He never really did care all that much about her. After all, he never told anything.

He never even told her where he was going.

She doesn't realise it, but she slowly, quietly starts to stew.

* * *

And then, two more days later, something snaps.

As far as delayed reactions go, it's very, very delayed, and brought about by the most ridiculous of things.

A client wants more money for a rent increase.

That reminds her that Roger's rent is due.

She hears his name in her head, slicing through her brain like it's carving a ham and suddenly all she can hear is his voice, all she can see is his face, all she can feel is white hot rage and pain, drilling holes in her, her happiness bleeding from the wounds as it properly hits her for the first time that Roger has betrayed her.

The only person she really trusted, and he just left her for dead. Didn't even bother to see what she had to say about all this. Yes, she _knows_ it isn't as if he could have avoided going on the run after what had transpired (though he _could_ have had the decency to give himself up, or better yet, to not have gone through with it in the first place) but why didn't he even _think_ of her?

He'd always said she was a ray of hope in his life, that he loved her so much, that he'd always want her, always care.

How much could he have cared for her, really, if he didn't so much as look back at her?

She stuck by him through everything. She loved him. She _trusted_ him.

Look where that's got her now. She's left with nothing.

No, that's it. Never again. The one person who cared actually didn't. She will never love anyone again. From now on it's hate or nothing, she hates Roger, she hates him so-oh _why did he have to go?_ Oh, bloody hell, how she loves him. Oh why, _why_ did this happen? Why can't she have anything in life, why can't she at least have her brother? She can get by on no other love, why can't she just have _one person _who doesn't screw her up irreparably?

It was always so easy to forgive Roger, in the past. But she can't bring herself to do it now. In fact, she doesn't think she can find it in her heart to forgive anyone ever again.

Martina shouts at her client, not even sure what she's saying or what she's accusing him of, but insulting him in a way which is highly unprofessional and will likely get her into trouble, and then she loses it, right there and then, in the DHSS office, at the busiest time of the day, with a packed room staring at her. She cries loudly and uncontrollably into her hands, fully aware she's making a scene.

'Martina!'

The woman in the next partition is glaring at her, her eyebrows raised in warning, a silent reminder that she has work to do, that she's making a fool of herself in front of everyone, that she should pull herself together.

She can't.

Normally she's so good at that, at braving whatever comes and hiding away her pain, but she doesn't have the strength right now, doesn't have the strength of _mind_. Instead, she gets up out of her chair and runs out into the back room.

She leans on one of the filing cabinets, fearful that if she doesn't her knees will give way and she'll fall down, her sobs so loud they echo. She's never had waterworks like this before. She normally doesn't allow it- yes, she cries, but normally she waits for the luxury of privacy, only cries either alone or with Rog- _oh, why?_ The thought sets her off again.

A hand wraps around her forearm, turns her sharply around. Rachael (Rochelle? Raquelle? She _has_ to learn that name) is glaring at her through her spectacles, drumming her fingers on her arm.

'And what, may I ask, was _that_?'  
'Was what?' Martina snuffles, the venom coming back to her tone, but not enough to redeem herself from her hysterics and the pathetic condition she's in.

'You know perfectly well what.' Martina's colleague, R-whatever, steers her to a chair, pushes her into it.

'Oh, can't you even guess why?' Martina asks bitterly. 'You were there when I found out- or has that day slipped yer mind?' She bows her head towards her lap to indulge in a bit more snivelling.

Possibly-Rachael gives her a shake. 'Martina. _Martina. Look at me.'_

She does, trying to pour hatred into her stare, knowing she's failing.

'Martina, how long have you been working here now?'

'Few months,' she says, not seeing why it matters in the least.

'Haven't you learned _yet_? Nobody cares about your sorrows. Nobody wants to see all yer inner torment. None o' them care.'

Martina opens her mouth and R-something holds up one finger, indicating she's far from done, and Martina would be wise not to interrupt.

'I just-'

'You're upset, I know. I could see. And just then, so could the entire DHSS. And you need ter learn that you will never get anywhere in this place if you let 'em all see when you're in pain.'

'It's hard-'

'_No-one cares_,' she repeats sternly, frowning Martina's protests into oblivion. 'Just as we don't care about whatever sob-stories they put to us. In this building, in this business, you have to be _detached, unbiased, clinical._ Do you understand? The people who come in 'ere will try every trick in the book to get you ter sign over the state's money- and if you fall for their sad little tales, they'll scam you for everythin' you're worth. You need to stand firm and strong- and it's even more important when they _realise_ you're not gonna fall fer their tricks, because _they will get aggressive_. And if you start cryin' in front of 'em- if you let every little heartbreak in yer own life get the better of you and look weak in front of 'em, _they will eat you_. Do you understand me, Martina?'

She shrugs, nods, gulps, trying to stop the tears coming. It makes sense, of course it does. She's got to be completely emotionless in here, if she wants to do well at her job. And she may as well do well at it, because it's all she's got now. It's the only thing in her life. She supposes, for all intents and purposes, it _is_ her life now.

She makes a pathetic attempt at wiping her eyes, and her colleague rolls her eyes.

' When I first met you, I thought you 'ad it in you. I saw you deal with that client- listenin' to all 'is rubbish and not letting a word of it get to you, not lettin' 'im get away with it- and you didn't even _work 'ere_!- and I thought you'd be up for this. I thought you'd be able to do it- detach yerself, rise up to the challenge, to not let any of them get the better o'you. How are you gonna do that if you're exposin' yerself like that? You're practically wearing a sign with arrows sayin' _here are my weak spots._'

'I know,' Martina says pathetically. 'It's just…'

'It's just nothin'.'

'I thought I could trust Roger,' Martina pushes on regardless. She wants to get the hurt out, needs to tell _someone_, and though she doesn't particularly like Rachael, apart from as a casual acquaintance, she's probably the only person Martina has now. 'I trusted 'im, and he just…'

'Look, Martina, it's high time you learned you can't trust anyone.'

Martina's mouth snaps shut. That's not what she wants to hear. Granted, she can't really talk about giving people what they want to hear, since she's vowed not to, but still, the comment irks her. She'd wanted sympathy, not to be told to suck it up.

'The sooner you realise that, the sooner you can get on with things.'

She'd like to argue, but the painful truth is that the woman's right. You can't trust people. Her life has been testament to that. Friends, lovers, parents, teachers, all of them out to harm her in some way unless she distanced herself and ignored whatever they threw at her. There was Gav, yes, but she didn't trust _herself_ in that relationship, and, she thinks now, there probably would have been _some_ element of deceit about him, she just hadn't uncovered it yet. People are all the same. None of them are decent. None of them are honest.

Not even the one person she thought was.

Rachael is right. The sooner she stops holding onto any delusions, the sooner she can advance in her work. Work won't lie. Work can't lie. She's dealing with liars, but work itself, the job, well, it's an honest living, and about the only decent thing she can cling to.

She takes a few deep breaths while her colleague stands over her, managing to stop herself crying, though her heart is still painful to bursting.

Martina looks into her workmate's eyes and forces herself to be sarcastic, just to prove she still can.

'Does that mean I can't trust you either?'

'Don't be clever. Now pull yourself together and get back out there. I want to see you doing your job- _properly._'

'I'll try,' Martina says, wiping her eyes.

'You'd better,' her comrade replies.

* * *

The shock has left Martina incredibly unstable, and living somewhere that reminds her of Rog isn't helping. She's bottling up all her pain at work, trying to take to heart what she's been told about appearing clinical, but as a result, it's all spewing out the second she's on her own.

'I hate you, Roger!' she screams at the wall, feeling another shred of her sanity snap. 'Why couldn't you have at least said goodbye?'

The wall doesn't answer.

Well, she wasn't expecting it to.

She collapses on her sofa, shouting insults at the mantelpiece now, realising as she does so that the photo of her and Rog is gone.

He might have taken it.

Probably has, to remind him of what they used to have.

But that's not enough to redeem him.

* * *

Martina doesn't want to take over the lease on Roger's flat. She cancels it instead, and starts to look for somewhere of her own. She's got enough money now, anyway, and she wants to make a fresh start in somewhere that doesn't reek of Scotch and painful memories.

She takes what's hers, leaves what's his. She hasn't even got that much, but when she's stuffed it all into a new suitcase, the flat still looks bare and empty. She walks around it, touching things, remembering _this is where we ate chocolate and talked about the Social Security_, and _this is where we had that row, and that's where the plates got broken._

She has a little hunt in all the usual hiding places for bottles, just for old time's sake, dares herself to go into Roger's room and tidy it up a bit, just because she feels she should.

And it's there, in the back of his wardrobe, underneath a heap of nearly-empty bottles of Glen Scotia and Longrow Single Malt, that she finds a small package, wrapped in old newspaper, a piece of white paper folded over and stuck to it, intended as a card, which reads _Happy 20__th__, Martina_. _Love Roger._

She chews on her lip. She doesn't know if she wants this, if she wants to open it. She doesn't want a reminder of her birthday, of how Roger chose to celebrate it by running off and not telling her why, and she knows that whatever's inside can't ever make up for that. Not _ever_. She has a good mind to throw it away.

But she doesn't. She tears off the wrapping and looks at what he's bought her.

It's cheap, and it's tacky. It's a necklace, a string of pink and purple and blue beads that looks downright horrible, that looks designed for a child, really, that looks as if it's the only thing Roger could afford to buy on whatever budget he'd spared from his usual whiskey expenses.

Martina thinks it's ugly.

She hates that shade of purple, always has, and she suddenly hates Roger very much, for thinking of her enough to get her a present, but not thinking enough of her to stay, to grace her at least with an explanation of why he had to go. The necklace is just an ugly reminder of the ugly way their relationship, their friendship, their companionship, their siblinghood came to an end.

But she can't bear to get rid of it. Even if she has hardened her heart and her thoughts towards her brother, even if she now despises him for so royally messing up her life and then just ditching her, leaving her with scars which won't ever heal, she can't stand to lose the last thing he ever gave her.

She keeps it, and wears it nearly every day.

* * *

'Is that all, then?'

Martina's sick of this. She's sick of policemen traipsing through Roger's flat, looking for evidence. She's sick of them coming round to see her, either at home or at work, bringing her more bills Roger has run up, which _nonetheless have to be paid_, regardless of the fact that they're not hers to pay, that, in case they haven't noticed, she's too upset to be contending with at the moment.

'No, it's not all, madam. The owners of these establishments…'

'You mean the pubs?'

The policeman just sighs at her. 'The _owners of these establishments_ cannot afford to overlook these debts- they could be put out of business…'

_'I _can't afford it!'

Even as she says it Martina realises how very like one of her clients she sounds. The man cocks his head to one side, looking as though he's weighing up whether to book her for speaking like that to an officer of the law, and then sighs.

'The debts have to be settled, madam. Does your brother have any other next of kin?'

It's not a decent thing to do. She knows that, even if you despise someone, foisting off a hundred-thousand pound or so debt on them is cruel, is by no means a compassionate thing to do.

But Martina and the concept of compassion are all but strangers, and she isn't intent on making an acquaintance.

And, as such, she finds herself reciting a name and address she hasn't properly thought of in years.

* * *

She could very easily back down, but Martina has been wracked with guilt about what she's done, and, in a bout of what may well be madness, she finds herself, about two weeks later, standing outside the door of the house she used to live in, trying to mentally prepare herself for seeing the parents she has cut from her life.

She swallows, toys with the DHSS staff badge on her collar, tightens her tie and nearly accidentally chokes herself when the front door opens and she beholds her mother standing there.

'Martina,' she doesn't sound at all surprised, which isn't what Martina was expecting. 'I thought I might see you- the police got in touch about a fortnight ago to discuss Roger.'

'Yeah,' Martina says, her insides crawling with discomfort.

They look each other up and down. Her mam seems to have aged a decade in two years, about a dozen more lines on her forehead, not a trace of colour left in her hair, nor in her face. She rarely smiled, back in the day, but now her mouth seems to be held in a permanent frown by invisible pins. She reaches out a hand to touch Martina's face, and Martina flinches.

'You look so…grown-up.'

'Thank you,' Martina says awkwardly.

'What've you done to your 'air?'

'It's fer work.'

'Oh, you've got a job, then?'

_Don't look so surprised_, Martina thinks.

'Yeah, I'm a civil servant,' she says evasively, 'look, I didn't come 'ere ter chat about that.'

'I know, love,' says her Mam. She holds the door wide open. 'Come in- yer Dad's out but you and I can still talk.'

Martina steps in reluctantly, breathing in the familiar smell of the house, something she'd taken for granted during her childhood and only just really notices now. To her left are the stairs she was constantly being sent up. She can almost feel her toes stubbing against them. She follows her Mam into the parlour, more memories assaulting her; her Dad slamming that door over there after a row between her parents, her mam sitting on this sofa and doing extra sewing to help pay her dad's debts, her kicking things around the room in a fit of fury before leaving home forever.

'Did…did you see Roger often?' her mother asks once they've sat down.

'Lived with him.'

'Hmm…I thought you might have.'

'Then why did you bother to ask?'

'Look, Martina…'

'Mam,' she interjects, the word fizzing like soapy water in her mouth, 'I couldn't pay off Roger's whiskey bills on me own, but I 'ave _got _a job, and I can 'elp with it…'

'Oh, you don't need ter worry about that. Your father and I are takin' on the debt.'

Martina thinks there's something wrong with her ears. For a moment there it sounded like her Mam had just said they were _taking on Roger's debt_.

She puts her index finger in her left ear, feels for wax that might be blocking her hearing. There isn't any. No, she really did hear right.

'How?' she manages to rasp out.

'We're sellin' the 'ouse.'

Martina all but falls out of her seat. Of all the things anyone could have said, she never expected to hear _that_.

Now she's mentioned it, Martina does notice, as she looks around, that all the pictures are missing from the walls, that cardboard boxes are stacked in the corners and that half the furniture is missing. She'd barely registered it, so daunted by having a conversation with her mother. Now she wonders how she missed it.

'You are?'

'And the car.'

'Where're you gonna go?'

'We're rentin' a flat in an 'igh-rise near the centre of town. I can give you the address if you like…'

'I don't think that'll be necessary…' Martina starts to say, but her mam has already dug out a folded piece of paper and dropped it into her lap.

She'd rather ignore it, but she has a look all the same.

'11-C? You're on the eleventh floor?'

Just thinking about it makes her calf muscles shudder. The new flat she's gotten for herself is on the fifth floor of its building, and _that's_ enough of a painful walk.

'Well, enjoy that, gettin' up close and personal with the aeroplanes.' She attempts to pass the paper back but her mother pushes it firmly into her fist, and Martina gets the feeling she's not going to be allowed to give it back.

'Yeah, well, we 'ad ter take what the council was offerin'- can't afford private 'ousing if we want to pay off these debts Roger's left us with- _and_ the debts yer Dad's _still_ runnin' up. He 'asn't changed, love.'

'Don't see why you'd think 'e would. _And_ I don't see why you think I'd care.'

Her mother looks stung. Martina takes no notice. She's beyond feeling anything for her parents. That ship left the harbour a long time ago, and has been sailing steadily further into the distance ever since.

Silence descends.

And sits.

And pushes down on them.

Martina wriggles a bit in her seat, wanting to go home.

'Martina?'

She glances up from her lap to see her mother eyeing her somewhat hopefully.

'I don't suppose you want ter…to talk about Roger? About what's happened?'

Martina's mouth sets. 'No.'

'About anything?'

'No.'

'At all?'

'No.' She resolutely avoids looking into her mam's eyes, and then grabs her coat before she can make any more pathetic attempts at reconciliation.

'I'm goin' 'ome.'

'Oh,' her mother's voice is pained. 'I'll…I'll see you another time, then, I suppose. If we need to discuss the debt.'

'Yeah, see yer, then.' She stands up, slinging her handbag over her shoulder and making for the door. 'Give my regards to British Airways.'

'I'll…I'll tell yer Dad you were here and all.'

Martina pauses, her hand on the doorknob.

'I wouldn't bother if I were you. I doubt he'll be all that interested in catchin' up. And I'm not, either.'

And she walks out of her childhood home for the last time.

* * *

Martina's flicking through the file for a Mister Caldwell (a man of very few words, most of which are insults) when she comes across a little card with Covington, Roger, written on it. She stares at Rog's alias for a long time, touching each of the letters with her index finger one at a time, her other hand reaching up to clasp the coloured beads around her neck.

Why did he have to go? She thinks. Why did he have to _be_ such a terrible influence? If he'd only been a bit less alcohol-obsessed, a bit more responsible, he wouldn't have gotten into all this trouble, and they could have been happy, they really could. Tears begin to form, and she forces them away. No, they couldn't. He was a bad lot, and nothing could ever have changed that. He's completely wrecked her life. And what's worse, he didn't even have the decency to tell her when he walked out of it. She begins to fume, the card crumpling in her hand. Just look at what she's got right now. He was a lying bastard all along. He lied to the Social Security, lied to the police about not being the man they were looking for, lied to _her._

'Oi, you! 'Ave you got me card out or 'aven't you? I can't wait all day, you know!'

Martina snaps out of it, gives the man at the counter a healthy glare, and slams both his file card and a blank form down in front of him.

'You fill that in,' she snaps, and while he's scratching away at the paper, she finds the other two of Roger's fake cards and tears all three of them up.

No more lies. She's never falling for them again, if she can possibly help it. Not from anyone. No caring, no _pitying_, no playing the fool and letting people get away with murder. Rachael (it _is_ Rachael, she's finally discovered) was right. You can't trust anyone. Anyone at all.

She can almost _feel_ her face turn to stone. From now on, she's going to have to be tough. She's going to have to shut a steel gate down over all her fears and insecurities and rise above them.

She's got to learn not to care_ at all, even slightly,_ if she's despised, if she's not wanted by people- and that situation is only going to get worse, considering where she's now employed, and the amount of people who are constantly complaining about the 'unfairness' of the Social Security system. It had been easy not to when she'd had Roger to fall back on, Roger to supply the love she rarely got elsewhere, Roger to help her get through any feelings of depression or loneliness she might feel. Roger was always her strength.

But Roger was a lying bastard, and that little false rug of security has been pulled out from under her feet. She's got to learn to keep herself from falling without its support.

She's got to be her own strength now.

* * *

Martina lies in bed in her new flat, listening to the silence, looking at the darkness, unable to sleep even a wink. It's been a long time since she's slept in a bed, has had room to flail her arms about, and she's never been in a double one before. She'd allowed herself to have it, along with several lovely ornaments, pink wallpaper, thick towels and a few other things, as a sort of compensation, reasoning that a) she has a job that pays and can hence afford it, b) she's entitled to treat herself after all the tragedy she's just been through; it's a small consolation, and c) why shouldn't she? She's on her own, she can live how she likes, with _what_ she likes.

It's no compensation, though- none at all. It's uncomfortable, the mattress, after the squashiness of Roger's sofa, and every time she rolls over and feels the vast expanse of empty space, she's reminded of how alone she is in the world.

Alone.

It's a word she's going to have to get used to.

* * *

She very quickly loses what little fondness she had for her job. It's a pretty rubbish thing to be doing, actually, just shouting 'next' and listening to a bunch of scroungers, who probably all have more in their lives than she does, anyway. But she works hard at it just the same, not from inspiration but from a strange motivation to catch as many of the liars out as possible, to send as many of them as she can away without whatever extra bonuses they think they are 'entitled' to. She likes to disappoint them, to give them a taste of her whole life. _Welcome to my world_.

And she gets good at doing it, too. It's not hard to sniff out a lie, particularly when the same people always get the same things taken from their washing lines on the same days every week. People to her become like glass carriage-clocks. She can see their guts. And it's not a very pretty picture.

She gives herself over to bitterness.

And so, as it always does, life goes on. The days go by, and as they do the notion becomes set in stone that, really, her job is crap, all she's achieved is crap, her _life_ is crap.

And that she's not going to bother to do anything about that. Ever, _ever again_.

There's no point. Dreams are a load of garbage and love is the most putrid of all the super-crap you find within that garbage, and trying to acquire either just results in another loss in the great game of life.

So she goes on mechanically, resigning herself to her fate, to the fact that life isn't going to get any better than this and that's all there is to it, and letting herself permanently wallow in the fact that there is no happy ending for her, after all.

Every so often, she will lose herself, rebel from that thought, if she thinks she's found a glimpse of something vaguely resembling happiness. She'll occasionally meet people- friends, lovers-and they'll break her heart, just as Roger did, and she'll remind herself that's why she doesn't _do_ the friends and lovers thing anymore, why she doesn't have people in her life.

And each time something happens, she'll fall down from that cloud with all her disillusionment crashing back down around her and caging her in, and she'll think herself foolish for having thought life could be anything other than depressing. Her cynicism will grow another foot every, every time.

She'll get a letter from her Mam and Dad, once they somehow find out where she's working, and she'll reluctantly go to visit them in their new council flat, eleven floors up, the walk killing her more than she could have imagined. They'll try to talk, even her Dad will try to be nice to her, and Martina will realise maybe they want to try again, want to build up some sort of relationship, maybe even love. But by now she doesn't care, doesn't like love, and she'll leave again and sever ties for the most part, only talking to them when it's absolutely necessary, and when she feels mad enough, or guilty enough, to give them a bit of money to help out with the Roger-debt.

She'll meet new clients, and she'll hate Joey Boswell, and the rest of his family too, because not only are they very clearly cheating her, trying to sneakily bring down the things she works for, the pillars of the job which is the only thing she has anymore, but because of the insufferable _smugness_ of them all. They have everything she wants but has never gotten, can never get, no matter how hard she works for it. She's doing long hours for little pay, but pouring what's left of her heart into her work won't get her a fraction of the money they're rolling in- and they do _nothing_ (or what they do isn't legal, and that's not fair either). She invested so much love into her brother, and now he's gone, and they have to rub it in about their loving and united family, and how they all stick together and how Kelsall Street is a place of fairytales where the love always pours out in abundance and they all help each other out. And on top of that, they have a whole load of expensive gear, which they flaunt in front of her, as if the perfect family and the not having to work aren't enough. That's just adding insult to injury, that is.

She gets a sort of twisted pleasure out of mocking them and plotting revenge on Joey. She has a hundred different fantasies of how Joey will be caught out, how Joey will be arrested, how Joey will die, will just evaporate one day, and she plays with them in her head when she can't get to sleep.

She'll fall in love with Shifty Boswell's impish smile, the ragged shrug of his shoulders and the fact that, subconsciously, he reminds her of Roger in a lot of ways- a very loveable, very _easy_ to love person who's nonetheless gone wrong somewhere in his life. And Shifty Boswell will lead her down that same path of broken trust and heartbreak, and reinforce in Martina's mind the idea that the world is cruel and love is garbage and dreams are crap.

Her heart is rock-hard now.

And when she calls out _next_ and the pathetic-looking woman still stands in front of her counter, trying to protest that she's struggling, blocking the desk to the next claimant, Martina purses her lips and tells her to _get out of the way._

_Get out of the way._

* * *

**_A_aaargh I'm sorry about the length and angst and whatnot. Anyway, it's done now and I hope it wasn't too unbearable.**

**Extra A/N trivia/housekeeping/notes about this segment:**

**-The woman I've named Rachael is meant to be the DHSS lady who sits next to Martina in the show and has occasional brief lines such as 'bye, Martina.' She has nothing to do with Jack's Rachel from series 5.**

**-The necklace Roger gives her is in the show, in a few episodes, especially the early ones she's wearing a bead necklace that doesn't really go with her outfit. I also _vaguely_ made a reference to it in 'At the End of the Day' (just because I'm a sad person who tries to tie everything in to everything). Baby Belle was chewing on it.**

**Anyway, I'm going to stop annoying everyone with author's notes now. I think I've done enough.**


End file.
